"I think every organization has its secret sauce"
This article was produced in partnership with Axiom Innovations.
Desmond Devoy, of Canadian Mortgage Professional, sat down with Dong Lee, Axiom Innovation’s new CEO, to discuss reconnecting with some old friends on a new adventure.
Same Dong Lee (pictured), new company, old friends.
The former chair of the board of directors for Mortgage Professionals Canada (2018 to 2022) is embarking on a new adventure at Axiom Innovations Inc. as their new CEO.
“I like to shake things up, keep things interesting,” he said with a laugh during a recent interview.
But joking aside, Lee reflected deeply before making this move, remembering what a friend once told him to think about – are you running away from something, or are you running toward something?
“I’ve always been of the mind that you never run away from something, you run towards something,” he said.
A biography of success
He has been friends with Joe Fakhri, president of Axiom, for many years. In fact, they used to work together at Mortgage Architects, where Lee was the vice president from 2005 to 2016, and then as president from 2016 to 2019. Lee was also the chief operating officer at DLC Group of Companies in Mississauga, Ontario, from 2019 until recently. Previous to these roles, he had served in the banking world – Scotiabank and TD – as well as a stint as a business development manager at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
“We’ve come full circle after all those years,” he said. “So it’s joining a friend, a colleague. I think that the opportunities at Axiom and Scarlett are absolutely immense.”
Lee credits Fakhri with building an incredibly strong organization. He points to Fakhri’s strengths in product development and innovations and technology, whereas his own strengths are more in the field of sales and operations, which will help benefit the company.
This new role will see him back in a smaller organization. But then, he says, that’s where he thrives, and he hopes to help grow the business alongside the team.
Dong Lee’s future direction for Axiom
While many new leaders immediately set the bar as to what they want to accomplish, Lee is taking a different approach to his early days at Axiom.
Lee would rather spend the first few months understanding the business and its culture, and what makes it tick.
“I think every organization has its secret sauce,” he said, and he does not want to disrupt the recipe as it is being cooked up.
For as much as a business is about a product and/or service, it’s more about the people: the employees and the customers. Any change can be incremental, or one degree of difference – but, like the trajectory of an airplane’s path, a single degree’s difference in direction can make a huge difference as the journey continues.
“The job I have is to come in and make those pivots and steer the company in the right direction,” he said. He added, thankfully, that he’s not walking into a place that is figuratively on fire and needs saving.
Axiom has two core products – Scarlett Mortgage and Scarlett Pay, products he and Axiom would love to see grow within the broker channel. He would love to expand the company’s strategic relationships. He acknowledges that Axiom cannot be all things to all people, but the business can gain strength with the right alliances. Fakhri has done a lot of work to grow the company not just through the broker channel, but also to lenders and other verticals.
“It’s never easy for a founder to give control up,” Lee said. “The simple truth is, Joe has been the caretaker for the last while.” As for himself, he takes to his role with “a great degree of humbleness,” he said, though still with an eye toward taking Axiom to the next level, with a fresh perspective with old friends.
“I’m looking forward to that opportunity. It’s where I’ve come from,” with his time working with Fakhri before, a time that he loved and thrived in. “That’s part of the fun of coming over to the Axiom side.”
