38 | APRIL 8 • 2021 

BUSINESS

MATT ISHBIA
continued from page 36

out for the kids to eat during 
recruiting visits.
”

STRONG WORK ETHIC
With a degree from MSU’s busi-
ness school, the overachieving 
third-string point guard mor-
phed over two decades into a 
feisty 41-year-old chairman and 
chief executive. The Bloomberg 
news service estimates his per-
sonal fortune at $9.42 billion, 
ranking him as the world’s 
244th richest person. Yet he still 
credits Spartan basketball coach 
Tom Izzo, along with his father, 
lawyer Jeff Ishbia, as the men-
tors most responsible for his 
position today.
“My father always worked 
extremely hard when I was a 
kid,
” he said. “He used to come 
and coach my games and then 
go back to the office, because 
there weren’t computers in 
those days. Like Izzo, he showed 
me that the guy who works the 
hardest has the best chance.
”
One of his first athletic 
accomplishments was Ishbia’s 
selection for Detroit’s youth 
Maccabi team at the age of 13. 
The Detroit Jewish News named 
him as the Jewish Athlete of the 
Year as a senior in high school.
These days, Ishbia hasn’t 
much time for basketball. He 
arrives at the headquarters of 
his company, United Wholesale 

Mortgage (UWM), in Pontiac 
by 4 or 4:30 a.m.; he remains 
at the office, he said, until 6 or 
6:30 p.m.
“I’m competing with Rocket 
Mortgage, Dan Gilbert, Jamie 
Dimon from Chase, Bank of 
America, Wells Fargo, these big 
guys,
” he said. “We didn’t have 
as much money as them. We 
didn’t have as much access to 
things, but we have all 24 hours 
in a day, and if I can outwork 
them every day, I’m going to 
end up ahead. That’s what I’ve 
been doing for 18 years now, 
coming in and working three 
extra hours a day more than 
them. That adds up to a lot of 
hours of overtime.
”

MOVE TO PONTIAC
Ishbia acknowledges great 
affection for Metro Detroit and 
welcomes the responsibility of 
deploying his wealth on behalf 
of the community, especially 
where the need is greatest. 

Finding UWM’s former head-
quarters in Troy “landlocked” 
and not able to expand, Ishbia 
chose Pontiac in 2018 “as a 
place we could grow into and 
make a positive impact.
” In 
November, UWM paid $23.3 
million to buy the 15.8-acre 
onetime Ultimate Soccer sports 
complex, part of which will be 
converted to workspace and 
the rest for youth sports activ-
ities.
“I love Pontiac,
” Ishbia said 
of the city, which has been one 
of Michigan’s most economical-
ly troubled. “My mother was a 
teacher in Pontiac for 25 years. 
I played basketball there. We’ll 
do some cool things with the 
sports center. We’re bringing 
activity to the city. I’ll do a 
school, a community center. 
But our biggest impact will be 
to run a really great business.
” 
He noted that UWM hired 
1,500 new employees since 
January.

Among his philanthropic 
activities was a $32 million 
donation in February to — sur-
prise! — Michigan State athlet-
ics. The money will be used to 
upgrade football facilities and 
will include the renaming of 
the Breslin basketball arena for 
Tom Izzo.
Like Bill Gates, Warren 
Buffett and many other bil-
lionaires, Ishbia knows that 
great riches come with societal 
expectations. “I’m newer to the 
game of making an impact,
” 
said the single father of three 
children. “The things that are 
most core to me are kids, mak-
ing an impact on children, and 
at the same time homelessness 
and people who are hungry.
”
The pandemic hasn’t slowed 
UWM’s growth. While some 
employers point to a future mix 
of in-home and in-office work, 
Ishbia prefers keeping his team 
together as much as possible. 
When directives from the state 

LEFT: Ringing the bell on the New York Stock Exchange. RIGHT: Mat and his father, Jeff Ishbia.

COURTESY OF UWM

COURTESY OF UWM

Veteran journalist/
author Berl 
Falbaum’s new 
expanded book 
on Donald Trump 
has been pub-
lished. Not One 
Normal Day: Trumpedia: A 
Tome of Lies, Scandals, 
Corruption and Much More is 
an important reference book 
for future generations who 

will have a difcult time 
understanding how Trump 
ever occupied the highest 
ofce in the land. Originally 
published in 2019, it has been 
updated to include his loss 
for reelection on Nov. 3, 
2020, the Jan. 6 insurrection 
and Trump’s acquittal of his 
second impeachment.

Josh Linkner’s Big Little 
Breakthroughs will be on sale 
April 20. Linkner, founder and 

CEO of five tech 
companies, 
including Detroit 
Venture Partners, 
and a popular 
innovation speaker 
and author, shares 
his Eight Core Obsessions of 
Everyday Innovators.

A recent staf addition at 
Cherry Republic’s headquar-
ters in Glen Arbor, Mich., is 
Leah Moskovitz, from West 

Bloomfield and a 
2012 graduate of 
West Bloomfield 
High School. 
Moskovitz is the 
Workgroups & 
Housing Supervi-
sor. She earned her bachelor’s 

here’s to

