Who is Sherry Hunt? What is the challenge she faces?

And what are her values and motivations at this

moment in time?

Sherry Hunt is the Vice President and underwriter at CitiMortgage. She used to work hard, always prided
herself on following the rules and built a successful and as long career in the mortgage business. She
began her career as a mortgage processor in a small bank in Alaska. It was in November 2004, when she
accepted the post of chief underwriter and vice president.

Sherry Hunt was facing a very critical challenge while working at CitiMortgage and her situation has
been worsening as the time moves on. The team, which has been led by Hunt, always found that all the
loans, which were being approved by Citi and had already been purchased by the lenders, were found to
have defects in them. It has been found that that the loan officers sometimes filled in the numbers
themselves. For instance, when they were filling out the application forms and the stated income loans,
which had no back up documentation, then they would think by themselves what level of income they
need to fill in so that the loan is approved according to the credit policy of the bank. Whether the
borrower earned that income or not, the loan officers would write that income in the loan application.

When the loan officers were informed about their mistake, they fought with the underwriter about the
found the problems. They never took Hunt seriously. The culture of Citi was another problem for Hunt
especially the constant changes in the upper management and squashing of the policies, which got into
the way of increasing the loan rates. Hunt has been isolated in the quality control unit where she
witnessed several frauds taking place at Citi. Around 80 to 90 percent of the loans were confirmed as
fraud by Hunt and her team.

Now the challenge, which was faced by Hunt, was how to take a stand against the fraud taking place at
Citi, whom should she inform and how. She was a woman who worked in this business since 1986 and
she had always stood by the book and followed the rules strictly. Her values guided her motivations and
she never wanted to take decisions, which are not moral and unethical. However, her motivation right
now to make the right decision depended on her job security. She had been applying for jobs for almost
a year but never heard back. Therefore, she had to take a right stand now and make a clear, ethical and
moral decision.