Jump to winners | Jump to methodology
Best Young Mortgage Professionals in Canada |
Rising Stars
Hard work allied with an ability to understand their clients has enabled the best young mortgage professionals in Canada to stand out
By Canadian Mortgage Professional
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Special Report Rising Stars 2026
Contents
- 01
- 02
- 03
- 04
- 05
- 06
- 07
- 08
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Special Report Rising Stars 2026
Same trait, different reasons
Sixty of Canada's best young mortgage professionals rated the traits behind their success. One quality left every other trait behind – but talk to the winners, and the reasons for the grind tell a bigger story.
4.97/5
Hard work was rated the single most important trait for career advancement – the highest score of any trait measured, and well ahead of formal credentials.
Same 4.97. Three different reasons to earn it.
Danielle Gibson
Community
10% of every commission goes to a client-chosen charity.
Prashant Chudasama
Legacy
Builds a team that runs without him in the room.
Jordan Ellis
Resilience
Grew up with nothing, and refuses to go back.
What nominators say matters most (rated 1–5, n = 60)
Emotional intelligence
4.65
Long tenure, one employer
2.90
38 of 60 winners – close to two-thirds – credit a mentor with shaping their career.
Hard work is the price of admission to the top tier of Canada’s mortgage industry, but the difference maker is effort that delivers results. Many across the sector see themselves this way, but saying and doing it are worlds apart.
Canadian Mortgage Professional (CMP) went looking for the best young mortgage professionals in Canada for the 10th annual Rising Stars list and found those who stood out don’t just talk about working hard but operate at a level most of their peers only claim to. That’s what has moved them ahead faster – not the belief, the execution. Every one of this year’s 60 winners rated hard work as the single most important trait for career advancement – with an average score of 4.97 out of 5 – ahead of emotional intelligence, legal knowledge, management training, and, by a wide margin, a relevant degree.
What the data can’t show is why. Talk to the winners themselves, and you'll find that the hustle takes many forms. Danielle Gibson, a broker in Newmarket, ON, grinds for her community – 10 percent of every commission goes to a client-chosen charity. Prashant Chudasama, an underwriting manager in Alberta, grinds to build something that outlasts him. Jordan Ellis, a broker in Prince Edward Island, grinds because he was raised with nothing and refuses to go back. Same trait. Same score sheet. Three completely different reasons to get out of bed. Rising Stars 2026 isn’t a story about one formula for success – it’s proof there isn’t one.
What does the Rising Stars 2026 data reveal about hard work in Canada’s mortgage industry?
The data backing this year’s list points to a broader shift in how the Canadian mortgage industry defines potential. Hard work and emotional intelligence topped every credential-based trait nominees were asked to rate, with a relevant degree and long tenure at a single employer trailing well behind (full trait breakdown below).
Denise Laframboise, a mortgage broker at Laframboise Mortgage, part of BRX Mortgage, in Whitby, ON, and one of CMP’s Top 50 Women of Influence for 2026, sees the same pattern from the mentor’s side of the desk.
“A lot of sales positions actually just come down to how hard you’re willing to work and how many phone calls or touch points or meetings you’re willing to make,” she says. Laframboise also points to confidence as a differentiator among the young professionals she has trained: “The strongest young people I see in this business believe that they are going to be successful and they have strong mindsets.”
That mindset is increasingly paired with comfort around technology. Laframboise notes that younger brokers tend to adapt faster to new mortgage platforms and are more willing to experiment with AI tools than colleagues who have relied on the same customer relationship management (CRM) systems and processes for years – a theme that also surfaces in this year’s winner interviews.
The broader market backs up why that adaptability matters. The share of Canadians who obtained their mortgage through a broker climbed to 38 percent in 2026, up six percentage points from the previous year, according to consumer research from Mortgage Professionals Canada conducted by Bond Brand Loyalty. Among recent first-time buyers specifically, broker usage reached 48 percent – a 10-point jump – as borrowers increasingly cite advice and process guidance, not just rate, as reasons for seeking out a broker over a bank, as CMP’s own coverage of the shift toward brokers over banks has reported. That widening value proposition – advice and relationship, not just price – is exactly the terrain where this year’s Rising Stars are competing.
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Rising Stars 2026 Industry context
Brokers are winning a bigger share of the market
The value proposition this year’s Rising Stars are competing on – advice and relationship, not just rate – is showing up directly in the numbers.
All Canadian borrowers
Share of Canadians who obtained their mortgage through a broker
First-time buyers
38% 2025
48% 2026
+10 pts
Broker usage among recent first-time buyers specifically – the steepest gain of any segment
Mentorship also runs through the data, and the pattern lines up with Laframboise’s own advice to newer brokers: prioritize the quality of mentorship on offer at a brokerage over commission splits. “Truly, I would like young people to stop looking at splits and really look at what type of mentorship they’re getting when they join a brokerage,” she says.
Who are Canada’s top young mortgage brokers and leaders in 2026?
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Rising Stars 2026 Winner profile
Mortgage Broker · Newmarket, Ontario
Danielle Gibson
Premiere Mortgage Centre
Driving force: purpose beyond the transaction
0%
of every commission goes to a charity of the client’s choosing – the foundation of a brand built on giving back, not just closing files.
What makes Danielle stand out
Community-first brand
She rebuilt her practice as Your Hometown Mortgage Girl, anchored in the town where she grew up.
Referral engine
Recurring events – Family Day skates, Easter egg hunts, an annual charity golf tournament – drive the majority of new business.
An unlikely pivot
She trained as a nurse; the bedside skills of staying calm under pressure now shape how she serves clients.
Mortgage Broker, Premiere Mortgage Centre – Newmarket, ON
Driving force: purpose beyond the transaction
Entity summary
-
Name: Danielle Gibson
-
Role: Mortgage Broker, Your Hometown Mortgage Girl (Premiere Mortgage Centre)
-
Location: Newmarket, ON
-
Core focus: Charitable commission model (10 percent of every commission to a client-chosen charity), community-driven events, and client advocacy
Danielle Gibson came to mortgage brokering by accident. Trained as a nurse, she started helping with administrative work for her husband’s residential mortgage business while on maternity leave with her eldest child, now eight. When it came time to return to nursing, she got licensed instead – but the conventional approach to the job never quite clicked. “I need to build a business that’s reflective of who I am and where my heart is at,” she says.
That realization led her to rebrand her practice as Your Hometown Mortgage Girl, anchoring it firmly in Newmarket, where she grew up and still lives. The brand is built around giving back: 10 percent of every commission goes to a charity of the client’s choosing, a practice she says helps her get to know clients on a deeper level. “My slogan is ‘Heart first, service always,’" Gibson says.
Her nursing background, it turns out, translates more directly to mortgages than she expected. Reading people under stress, staying calm when someone else’s biggest financial decision is falling apart around them, knowing when to push and when to listen – those are bedside skills, repurposed. It’s served her well through a genuinely difficult year for the industry: appraisals have been coming in short or light more often than usual, and a wary market has left plenty of brokers with a slower year. Gibson’s, by her own account, is on track to be her best yet – something she credits directly to leaning harder into the human side of the job rather than retreating from it.
That read on her holds up inside her own brokerage, too. Corina Murphy, broker and manager at Premiere Mortgage Centre, says Gibson has quickly established herself as “a trusted advisor, dedicated client advocate, and emerging industry leader.” What sets her apart is “her ability to combine business success with meaningful community impact,” Murphy says.
“I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve lost a client to a bank this year. I fight tooth and nail for my clients”
Danielle Gibson Premiere Mortgage Centre
The approach has scaled with her business. In September 2026, Gibson hosted her first charity golf tournament, drawing roughly 120 golfers toward a $15,000 fundraising goal for TLC, The Life Center, a Newmarket pregnancy crisis centre she has supported for years. Recurring events – Family Day skates, Easter egg hunts – generate the majority of her referral business, and she credits her nursing background with an unexpected transferable skill set for client-facing work.
Gibson says revenue growth means little to her beyond what it enables. “The more money I make, the more we’re giving back,” she says. “That is what excites me.”
She has started building out a small support structure – an administrative assistant who now handles compliance intake and paperwork, freeing Gibson to spend more time in front of clients – but she plans to keep her core team small and stay personally hands-on with every client rather than delegate relationships to junior brokers as she grows.
Q: What’s the biggest strength you bring to this business?
A: My commitment to serving others – my success is measured not only by personal achievement but also by the positive impact I have on others. My willingness to share knowledge, support fellow professionals, champion financial education, and create tangible charitable impact through my business reflects my Give Back Philosophy in everything I do.
Q: How do you build trust with new clients?
A: I try my very best to make mortgages not transactional, and to really get to know my clients and their heart. That has had a direct correlation with my business going to the next level.
Q: What does long-term success look like for you?
A: I hope to become recognized not only as a top-performing mortgage professional but also as a leader who helps redefine what success looks like within the industry – expanding my charitable giving, developing community-focused events, and mentoring emerging professionals.
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Rising Stars 2026 Winner profile
Underwriting Manager · Alberta
Prashant Chudasama
Spire Mortgage
Driving force: building something that lasts
0
Mortgages funded in 2025 – a 17% increase year-over-year, managed while onboarding four new employees without missing a beat.
What makes Prashant stand out
Hands-on by design
Personally reviews the most complex, exception-based files, and sits with new underwriters as they learn on live deals.
Built the system
Helped design Spire’s HubSpot-based deal-pipeline, automating client communications across every file stage.
Grew the team
From a one-man band underwriting for three brokers to a nine- or 10-person operation at Spire today.
Underwriting Manager, Spire Mortgage – Alberta
Driving force: building something that lasts
Entity summary
-
Name: Prashant Chudasama
-
Role: Underwriting Manager, Spire Mortgage
-
Location: Alberta
-
Core focus: Hands-on leadership of a six-person underwriting team, building processes and people that operate independently of him, and using AI to expand underwriter capacity
Prashant Chudasama sits at the operational core of Spire Mortgage, managing a team of six to four underwriters and two fulfillment specialists who process the majority of the brokerage’s files. In 2025, Spire submitted more than 510 deals to lenders and funded 362 mortgages, a 17 percent increase over the 308 funded in 2024, a growth curve Chudasama managed while simultaneously onboarding four new employees.
His approach to leadership is hands-on by design. Rather than delegating and stepping back, Chudasama sits with new underwriters as they work through live files, monitoring and approving decisions in real time.
“The best mortgage isn’t the one that just gets approved,” he says. “It’s the one that leaves every person in the transaction wanting to work together again.”
That hands-on instinct extends to coaching moments that might otherwise slip past. Chudasama recalls a colleague who reviewed a client’s file – a mortgage sitting at 4.79 percent – and concluded there was no opportunity to help. Rather than letting it go, Chudasama took a second look and found the client could move to 3.89 percent, a drop worth thousands over the life of the mortgage despite some upfront cash required. He recorded a personalized video walking the colleague through his reasoning, a habit he uses often across his team specifically because live phone coaching rarely fits everyone’s schedule. It is a small example of a pattern that defines his role: reviewing the most complex, exception-based files himself, holding full approval authority, and personally filming client-facing videos that explain mortgage terms – a level of hands-on involvement across a client base that ranges from first-time buyers with no credit history to seasoned investors purchasing a seventh rental property.
That philosophy traces back to his own start at Spire under owner Renee Huse, whom Chudasama credits as the single biggest influence on his career. “She gave me a tremendous amount of trust and room to figure things out, make decisions, make mistakes, solve problems,” he says, describing it as an underrated form of mentorship – one built on space rather than instruction. Spire itself has grown the same way: Chudasama recalls a time when he single-handedly underwrote for three brokers, a “one-man army” operation. Today, Spire is a nine- or 10-person team overall, within which Chudasama now runs his own six-person underwriting group.
“The biggest evolution for me has been learning that I can’t solve all the problems on my own – now I’m more into developing people who can solve the same problems without a lot of assistance from me”
Prashant ChudasamaSpire Mortgage
Chudasama has also helped shape Spire’s HubSpot-based workflow system, a custom deal-stage pipeline that automates client communications, and is exploring how AI tools can further streamline underwriting – from file organization to note-taking – without replacing the judgment calls that define his role. For Chudasama, success today looks different than it did earlier in his career. “Success is building something that continues to work when I’m not even personally touching every piece of it,” he says.
Q&A with Prashant Chudasama
Q: What’s the single most important trait for becoming a leader in this industry?
A: The ability to develop others without letting your own standards slip. True leadership isn’t about stepping back once you’ve reached a certain level – it’s about staying in the work, staying present with your team, and continuing to raise the bar for yourself even as you raise it for the people around you.
Q: How has your definition of success changed over your career?
A: Early on, I measured success by the number of files I closed or how quickly I could solve something. Now it’s about people – seeing someone I trained become really good at what they do, having a broker call me for advice because they trust my judgment.
Q: What role is technology playing in your work right now?
A: We’re actively exploring how AI can streamline underwriting – organizing file notes, sorting deals, and improving navigation across the pipeline. It’s not about replacing judgment; it’s about giving people more capacity to do the things they’re uniquely good at.
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Rising Stars 2026 Winner profile
Mortgage Broker · Prince Edward Island
Jordan Ellis
Ellis Mortgage Group, TMG Atlantic
Driving force: proving it to himself
$0 M
in annual mortgage volume – built on a documents-first process so disciplined he says he never works from hypotheticals.
What makes Jordan stand out
Documents-first discipline
“I don’t live in hypotheticals.” A strict, paperwork-up-front process built for speed and certainty.
Diversifying now
Partnering on commercial deals with a Moncton specialist – one client alone expected to bring $20 million this year.
A comeback story
Grew up with nothing from age one. Now down 70 pounds and back to running – 1,300+ km logged this year alone.
Mortgage Broker, Ellis Mortgage Group (TMG Atlantic) – Prince Edward Island
Driving force: proving it to himself
Entity summary
-
Name: Jordan Ellis
-
Role: Mortgage Broker, Ellis Mortgage Group (TMG Atlantic)
-
Location: Prince Edward Island
-
Core focus: Documentation-first process discipline, steady high-volume production (145–165 mortgages annually, worth roughly $50 million), and expansion into commercial lending
Jordan Ellis’s work ethic was forged early. He started working at 14 on a milk truck, took on serving jobs and hockey officiating through university, and built a parallel career as a play-by-play sports broadcaster before entering the mortgage industry with no prior banking background. He closed 125 mortgages in his first eight months at CIBC – a top-one-percent pace, by his own account. His first full year happened to land during the COVID-era refinancing boom, when he closed 212 mortgages solo, working roughly 70-hour weeks. “I’ll never do that again,” he says now.
Seven years later, he has settled into a steady, sustainable 145–165 mortgages annually, worth roughly $50 million, and has begun expanding into commercial lending.
His process is built on discipline rather than charm. “I don’t work unless you give me documents,” Ellis says. “I don’t live in hypotheticals. I live in reality.” Clients who want a pre-approval get a straight answer within minutes, but only once the paperwork is in hand, a habit he traces back to a strict documents-first policy at his former employer. That efficiency has made him one of the highest-producing brokers at TMG Atlantic, where he has built his own brand, Ellis Mortgage Group, within the wider network.
“Growing up, I didn’t have anything. I always knew I wanted to be successful”
Jordan Ellis Ellis Mortgage Group (TMG Atlantic)
The past 16 months tested that discipline in a different way. During a demanding personal stretch, Ellis closed 50 mortgages in a single summer while running on minimal sleep – a period he describes as one of the toughest of his career, even as his production held steady. Since then, he has rebuilt his health with the same intensity he brings to his files: down 70 pounds and back to running after a six-year break, having logged more than 1,300 kilometres this year alone – a recovery that echoes advice CMP has reported from mental health experts on real strategies for mortgage resilience beyond surface-level self-care.
Ellis credits a small group of mentors – including Jeff Woodford, Steve Whitehead, Andrew Matheson, and Lindsay McGinnis – with shaping his career, and now mentors newer brokers himself. Asked what keeps him motivated after seven years at a high, consistent volume, his answer is simple: he genuinely enjoys giving advice and plans to keep doing the job for decades to come.
That volume is also starting to diversify. Ellis has begun partnering on commercial deals with Matthew McKay, a commercial specialist in Moncton, drawing on a client base that skews toward established entrepreneurs and multi-property investors, including one client alone expected to bring roughly $20 million in commercial business this year. He credits some of that credibility to his own investment habits: Ellis owns roughly 20 rental units personally, which he says lets him speak from direct experience rather than theory when advising investor clients on financing structures. He incorporated his business, Ellis Mortgage Group, from day one within the TMG Atlantic network – a decision he says has paid off financially and given him room to sponsor local and national sports programs, from youth gymnastics to cancer-charity initiatives, in a community he has never left.
Q: What’s the biggest strength you bring to a client’s file?
A: I’m fluent in accounting, mortgages, lender policies, and structuring mortgage applications. I know where to send each client to get them the best product available to help them achieve their financial goals.
Q: What’s your advice for newer brokers handling a difficult file?
A: Be honest, even when it’s uncomfortable. I’ve seen brokers tell a client their property “wasn’t good enough” when the real issue was a credit score problem – that kind of dishonesty helps no one. Transparency lets clients actually fix the problem and come back.
Q: What’s the single most important trait for becoming a leader in this business?
A: Knowledge. If you aren’t fluent in the mortgage products you’re offering clients, you won’t be as successful as you should be.
What traits define the top young mortgage professionals in Canada?
Beyond the three featured profiles, CMP’s full Rising Stars 2026 nomination data – covering all 60 winners across every province and a wide range of roles, from mortgage agents to sales directors – reinforces the same story.
Trait importance, rated 1–5 by nominators (n = 60):
| Career trait/attribute |
Importance rating (out of 5) |
Significance/key takeaway |
| Hard work |
4.97 |
Rated #1 driver of success by 2026 nominees |
| Emotional intelligence (EQ) |
4.65 |
Outranked all formal or academic credentials |
| Legal knowledge |
3.68 |
Moderate importance for daily execution |
| Management training |
3.37 |
Secondary factor for early career growth |
| Long employer tenure |
2.90 |
Low influence on advancement |
| Relevant degree |
2.83 |
Rated lowest overall; credentials matter less than skills |
Nominators were also asked whether their nominee had a mentor who guided their career. Of the 60 nominees, 38 – close to two-thirds – gave an unambiguous “yes” or a detailed account naming the mentor in question, while 21 said no, and one response was unclear. That figure is broadly consistent with the mentorship threads running through all three featured profiles.
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Rising Stars 2026 Winner demographics
Who are Canada’s Rising Stars 2026 winners?
A breakdown of age, industry tenure, and job title across all 60 winners (n = 60) – and what it reveals about how this list defines “young talent”
Age
★ Gibson (34), Chudasama (33), and Ellis (35) all fall here
Nearly half of this year’s winners are 33–35 years old, the oldest band still eligible under the program’s 35-and-under cutoff.
Years in the industry
★ Gibson (7 yrs), Chudasama (8 yrs), and Ellis (7 yrs) all fall here
All three of this year’s featured winners – Gibson, Chudasama, and Ellis – land in the exact same age band and the exact same tenure bracket. The list isn’t catching rookies; it’s catching people who’ve just put in enough years to separate from the pack.
Job title
85%
of winners are underwriters, brokers, auditors, or advisors – frontline roles, not management.
The rest: 7% manager/lead/senior/partner · 7% AVP/VP/SVP/director/head · 2% other
Five out of six winners are still in frontline roles, not management, which is exactly the point of a Rising Stars list: catching talent on the way up, not after they’ve arrived.
Age eligibility for Rising Stars 2026 was capped at 35 as of October 1, 2026, and this year’s list spans mortgage agents, brokers, underwriters, and sales leaders from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador, at organizations ranging from independent brokerages to national brands including Equitable Bank and TD.
How are AI and high interest rate renewals changing the Canadian mortgage market in 2026?
Canadian Mortgage Professional – Rising Stars 2026 Industry outlook
The AI stakes are rising for Canada’s brokers
Technology fluency is becoming a genuine competitive advantage – and a genuine competitor. As the next wave of renewals hits, brokers are racing AI tools for the same young clients.
0.00M
Canadian mortgages are set to renew in 2026 alone, most facing materially higher rates than borrowers locked in years earlier.
AI skills wage premium
25% → 0%
Workers with in-demand AI skills now command a 56% wage premium over peers without them – up from 25% the year before.
Who Canadians aged 18–29 turn to for advice
More young Canadians now use AI for financial or mortgage advice than a licensed broker or advisor.
If hard work and emotional intelligence are what got this cohort onto the list, technology fluency may be what keeps them there. Denise Laframboise points to younger brokers’ comfort with new tools – from renewal-tracking platforms to AI-assisted research – as a genuine competitive advantage over brokers using the same processes for years. “Everybody can benefit from really good well-built safe technology,” she says, while cautioning against putting client documents into unsecured systems.
That caution is echoed in how this year’s featured winners are approaching AI. Chudasama’s team at Spire is deliberately using AI to expand underwriter capacity rather than replace judgment calls, while Ellis remains skeptical that AI is necessary for his own deal processing given how refined his manual process already is – though he expects an incoming assistant, not software, to be what finally takes administrative work off his plate. The stakes around that balance are rising: workers with in-demand AI skills now command a 56 percent wage premium over peers without them, up from 25 percent the year before, according to PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer. AI literacy topped LinkedIn’s 2026 Skills on the Rise list as the fastest-growing skill across Canadian and global job markets alike, as CMP’s own reporting on how brokers are actually using AI has also tracked.
There’s also a consumer-side pressure this cohort will need to reckon with directly. Among Canadians aged 18–29, more now turn to AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, for financial or mortgage advice (26 percent) than use a licensed mortgage broker or financial advisor (17 percent), according to a national survey of 1,910 Canadians conducted by Abacus Data for the Real Estate and Mortgage Institute of Canada in mid-2026. That reality raises the bar for brokers competing for the next generation of homebuyers: technology fluency alone won’t differentiate a broker from a chatbot – the relationship will.
As renewal volumes climb, that relationship is about to matter more than ever. Approximately 1.15 million Canadian mortgages are set to renew in 2026 alone, most facing materially higher rates than they locked in years earlier, according to CMHC’s analysis of the current renewal wave. Laframboise’s core message to the next generation may prove the most durable trend of all: that despite the shiny tools on offer, “this business is still a relationship business.”
What do CMP’s Rising Stars 2026 winners have in common?
Grit was the verdict from 60 nominators naming the best young mortgage professionals in Canada, and not one of them had to be asked twice. But grit isn’t a trait. It’s a byproduct, and the source is the whole story.
-
Gibson’s grit buys her community’s trust, one client and one charity dollar at a time.
-
Chudasama’s grit built a team that no longer needs him in the room.
-
Ellis’s grit enabled him to rise above his circumstances, better himself, and achieve.
What’s clear from this year’s winners is that motivation doesn’t just come in one form. The Rising Stars of 2026 are inspired by contrasting things, but what unites them all is a determination and willingness to earn it on their own terms with hard work and dedication to their careers.
- Alexandra Elizalde
Team Lead – Broker Administrative Services
Multi-Prêts
- Alysson DeChamp
Mortgage Agent
BRX Mortgage
- Anthony Di Feo
Mortgage Broker
Multi-Prêts
- Ariana Diseri
Inside Sales Representative
Alta West Capital
- Avleen Khaira
Mortgage Associate
Jayman Financial
- Bradyn Legere
Director of Sales
Maple Financial
- Brooke Scouten
Mortgage Agent Level 2
Kingston Mortgage Solutions/Mortgage Alliance
- Cassidy MacDonald
Mortgage Broker and Operations and Agent Support Manager
Kingston Mortgage Solutions/Mortgage Alliance
- Chad Leonard
Courtier Hypothécaire/Mortgage Agent
Mortgage Alliance
- Cory Parsons
Mortgage Agent L2 and Marketing and Brand Specialist
TMG The Mortgage Group
- Daniyal Syed
Lead Residential Mortgage Officer
Equitable Bank
- Deepak Agarwal
Mortgage Fulfillment Manager
Extend Financial
- Deepinder Kaur Sidhu
Sub-Mortgage Broker
DLC A.I.M.I. Collective Mortgage Group
- Étienne Gilbert
Mortgage Broker
Planiprêt
- Francisco Lazarte
Agent Level 2
FLOW Lending Group - Mortgage Architects
- Gilbert Mensah
Mortgage Broker
East Coast Mortgage Brokers
- Jacob Snitman
Broker
Mortgage Outlet
- JD Lee
Mortgage Associate
Mortgage Architects - Team Borle
- Jodi Whitcomb
Mortgage Broker
CBIG Mortgage Group
- Jordan Shaw
Senior Director, Residential Credit and Lending Strategy
EQ Bank
- Justin Domanico
Mortgage Associate
Mortgage Architects - Team Borle
- Karim Kadri
Mortgage Broker
Multi-Prêts
- Katie Geddes
Mortgage Agent Level 2
Key Mortgage Partners
- Kevin Dhaliwal
Mortgage Broker
GNE Mortgages
- Laura Marchese
Mortgage Broker
Key Mortgage Partners
- Laura Rosset
Mortgage Broker
DLC Entrust Mortgage Services
- Linden Crain
Broker
The Elite Mortgage Group
- Marie-Philippe Mandeville
Mortgage Broker
Multi-Prêts
- May Cheung
Lead Residential Mortgage Underwriter
Equitable Bank
- Mercedes Burgwal
Mortgage Broker
TMG
- Natalia Bury
Mortgage Agent
BRX Mortgage
- Neelema Bhogal
Manager, Mortgage Adjudication
HomeEquity Bank
- Nicholas Brown
Mortgage Broker
Mortgage Alliance
- Nick Theobald
Mortgage Broker
Dominion Lending Centres - Thrive Mortgages
- Nilabho Hore
Mortgage Agent Level 2
Mortgage Outlet
- Patrick Collins
Mortgage Professional
Concourse Mortgage Group - Invis
- Paulo Ramos
Full-Time Broker and Agent
Finest Mortgage
- Rahul Chhabra
Mortgage Broker
Mortgage Intelligence
- Raj Singh
Broker Owner
AKAL Dream Mortgage Solutions
- Robin Mahal
Mortgage Broker
DLC A.I.M.I Collective Mortgage Group
- Robyn Susman
Senior Mortgage Officer
Equitable Bank
- Rosanna Shiyamalan
Lead Residential Mortgage Officer
Equitable Bank
- Scott Hynes
Mortgage Broker
Jennings and Associates
- Shelby Eriksson
Mortgage Broker
TMG/Be One Financial
- Stefan Mandic
Regional Sales Manager
TD
- Tate Olson
Mortgage Associate
TMG The Mortgage Group
- Tegbir Sehdev
Mortgage Broker
Aimi Collectives
- Tom Moffat
Co-Owner, Tango Ontario and VP Broker/Agent Relations – Ontario
Tango Financial | Tango Ontario
- Tom Winski
Mortgage Agent Level 2
MA - A Better Way
- Travis Colman
Mortgage Associate
Colman & Associates Mortgage Consulting - INVIS
- Vincent Rochette
VP of Sales and Market Intelligence
M3 Tech – BOSS
Insights
As part of our editorial process, CMP’s researchers interviewed the subject matter expert below for an independent analysis of this report and its findings.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CMP’s Rising Stars list?
Rising Stars is an annual Canadian Mortgage Professional special report identifying the best young mortgage professionals in Canada – industry professionals aged 35 and under who have shown leadership and achievement over the past year. The 2026 edition features 60 winners nominated by managers and senior industry professionals across Canada.
What traits matter most for young mortgage professionals
to advance?
According to this year’s nomination data, hard work and emotional intelligence rank far above formal credentials like a relevant degree or long tenure at a single employer, suggesting resilience and people skills matter more to career advancement in this field than academic background.
Is mentorship common among Canada’s top young mortgage professionals?
Yes. Close to two-thirds of this year’s Rising Stars nominees (38 of 60) credited a mentor with helping shape their career, a pattern reinforced by industry voices like Denise Laframboise, who advises newer brokers to prioritize mentorship quality over commission splits when choosing a brokerage.
How is technology changing the role of younger mortgage brokers?
Younger brokers are generally faster to adopt new CRM platforms and AI tools than colleagues using long-established processes, according to industry commentary in this report. That fluency is becoming a genuine differentiator – LinkedIn’s 2026 Skills on the Rise report named AI literacy the fastest-growing skill in the Canadian finance sector – though winners featured here emphasize using AI to support judgment and efficiency rather than replace the relationship-driven core of the job.
Are young Canadians turning to AI instead of mortgage brokers?
Somewhat. A mid-2026 survey by Abacus Data for the Real Estate and Mortgage Institute of Canada found that Canadians aged 18–29 were more likely to have used an AI tool for financial or mortgage advice (26 percent) than a licensed broker or advisor (17 percent) in the past year – a trend that underscores why relationship-driven service, not just technical competence, remains this generation of brokers’ core differentiator.
In May, Canadian Mortgage Professional invited professionals from across the Canadian mortgage industry to nominate their most exceptional young talent for the 10th annual Rising Stars list.
The nominees had to be aged 35 or under as of October 1, 2026, and have committed to a career in mortgages with a clear passion for the industry. Nominees were asked about their current roles and responsibilities and their key achievements over the past 12 months, and recommendations from managers and senior industry professionals were also considered. The CMP team reviewed all nominations, narrowing the list down to 60 of the industry’s most outstanding young professionals.
