This Women in Mortgage Summit session tackles succession, sustainability, and the structures too many brokers avoid
Most mortgage brokers build businesses around themselves. A Women in Mortgage Summit Canada session on September 24 asks what happens when you step back.
The hardest question in a mortgage broker's career is rarely about rates or regulations. It is about the business itself — what it is worth, who could run it, and whether it could survive a sudden absence.
On September 24, a fireside chat at the Women in Mortgage Summit Canada (WIMS) will take that question off the back burner and put it at the centre of the room.
The session, "Building a Business That Lasts — Sustainable Growth, Succession, and Creating Long-Term Value," is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the International Centre in Toronto.
It is one of several headline sessions at the fourth consecutive staging of the summit, which is hosted by Canadian Mortgage Professional and draws more than 600 mortgage professionals annually.
The gap between building and planning
A 2025 B.C. Chamber of Commerce report found that 76% of small business owners plan to exit their businesses over the next decade, yet only 34% of Canadian family businesses have a robust, documented, and communicated succession plan in place.
For mortgage brokerages — where client relationships, referral networks, and institutional knowledge are often concentrated in a single person — that gap carries particular risk.
The WIMS fireside chat is designed to move the conversation beyond theory.
Moderator Melissa Wienand, head of FinTech at TransUnion Canada — a platinum sponsor of the summit — will guide a discussion structured around practical decisions: the systems that support growth, what succession actually looks like in a mortgage context, and how to protect a business through leadership changes and personal disruption.
The panelists
Zamina Walji leads growth lending businesses at Equitable Bank, Canada's Challenger Bank and a platinum sponsor of the 2026 summit.
Equitable Bank, a federally regulated Schedule I bank headquartered in Toronto, serves more than 360,000 Canadians and has a long-standing presence in the mortgage broker channel.
Walji's work sits at the intersection of growth strategy and the lending structures that underpin broker businesses over time.
Joining her is Sabeena Bubber, a mortgage broker with Xeva Mortgage based in West Vancouver, British Columbia. Bubber is one of the most decorated practitioners in the country. She was named Canadian Broker of the Year at the Canadian Mortgage Awards 2025, an award sponsored by REMIC.
Over the course of her career, she has helped fund more than $750 million in mortgages for more than 2,900 clients.
Bubber owned her own firm from 2007 to 2013, before merging her operations with several others in Vancouver to form Xeva Mortgage — a transition that puts her experience with brokerage consolidation and restructuring directly on point for this session.
From building influence and confidence to navigating industry evolution, join a discussion that highlights the power of learning across generations, experiences, and leadership journeys.
— Canadian Mortgage Professional Magazine (@CMPmagazine) September 8, 2026
Join us at the #WomenInMortgageCA Summit 2026 and register today: https://t.co/GuPBUT34G4 pic.twitter.com/pCz1e4pyRJ
What the session covers
The session agenda is specific. It addresses the systems and structures that support sustainable growth; what succession planning actually looks like in the mortgage industry; the habits that increase business value and reduce owner dependency; and how to navigate life's biggest disruptions — from divorce and illness to the loss of a loved one — while maintaining business continuity and protecting a financial future.
That last category is notable. Succession planning discussions in the mortgage industry tend to focus on retirement timelines and business valuation. This session extends to a harder set of scenarios — the unplanned transitions that practitioners rarely prepare for but that carry the greatest immediate risk.
Summit and sponsor context
The Women in Mortgage Summit Canada is supported by a broad group of industry partners. Platinum sponsors for 2026 include Equitable Bank, First National Financial — one of Canada's largest non-bank mortgage lenders — Haventree Bank, MCAN Home Mortgage Corporation, and TransUnion Canada.
Gold sponsors include BMO Bank of Montreal, Glasslake Funding, HomeEquity Bank, Home Trust, Magenta Capital Corporation, Mortgage Savvy, REMIC, Questbank, TD Insurance, and WealthOne Bank of Canada.
The summit runs as a dedicated one-day event on September 24. A WIMS registration also includes full access to MortgageFest Canada on both September 23 and 24 at the International Centre.
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