SitusAMC Power Pro: Mary Bui

Name: Mary Bui 
Office: Remote 
Title: AVP, Warehouse, Finance and Custody Solutions  

Day-to-day: I work on the Warehouse Administrative Services team. Most of my time is dedicated to supporting the needs of a specific client by processing loan fundings, loan settlements and other operation needs.  

How I ended up at SitusAMC: I’ve been in the mortgage and warehouse lending space for almost 15 years. When I first started working in warehouse lending, we had a vendor that provided and supported the system application for the bank’s daily operations. Clients used this application for all their warehouse lending needs and still use it to this day. So, all these years I was familiar with this application, which is now supported by SitusAMC. I’ve learned a lot so far in this role. Previously I only handled accounting-related tasks, but this position introduced me to a lot more of operations. I love working with the team that I have now! 

Inspiration: I’m a little introverted and get nervous being around many people – virtual and in person. My team is very supportive and makes me feel included. It’s exciting to hear different perspectives from many different people. I’m also learning a lot from people who have experience in things I don’t know yet. I love gaining insights from the more experienced people on my team, because I feel like I’m growing personally. 

Biggest career success: I didn’t intend to stay at my first bank job for over a decade, but I got into warehouse lending and learned so much, and just kept going. When I left that bank, I started from the ground up again at a new bank in the same warehouse lending space. Somebody saw that I could lead a team and was worthy of managing a startup. Being on the front side of that was a big success.  

Pivotal moment: I have always been a very hard worker. In my younger days, I would trade all my personal time for working time. But when I began my maternity leave, I realized that work wasn’t everything anymore. I didn’t have a social life or anything else going on, and I realized that wasn’t how I wanted to live. So having a baby really shaped how I think about work because now I care for more in life than just work. Having a work-life balance is very important to me now. 

Hometown: I grew up in a small town in Texas called Grand Prairie. We rode our bikes until it was dark outside, ate whatever Mom made us, and studied hard at school. Growing up like that was wonderful. It was simple. Life has changed for sure. I miss that simplicity.  

My role model: Both my parents have now passed but I’ve always looked up to my father. My parents came to the U.S. from Vietnam during the war in 1975 when my mother was pregnant with my oldest brother. They arrived here with nothing, found a sponsor, had four kids and made it work! My parents didn’t need a big house or a lot of stuff to be happy. They were very humble and modest in their outlook and shaped the values that I have now. My dad was an amazing worker, who always had more than one job. I look up to him a lot. Until the day he passed he never gave up: he was always providing for us and helping. One word that I think of when I think of him is strong. Physically and mentally, he was a very strong person.  

Downtime: I love to spend my time with my dogs -- or any dogs. I’m a huge dog lover. You would never guess it because I was bitten by a dog as a kid and was frightened by that experience for a very long time. When I met my husband and learned that he loves dogs and really wanted a big dog, I had to come around. At one point we moved in temporarily with my in-laws, and they had a small Pomeranian. His name was Aspen and he was really fluffy and loved me. Because of him, we got our own little Pomeranian puppy named Biscuit. He is turning nine this year. That worked out so well that we moved on to a German Shepherd! We got her as a puppy and she will be seven this year. She’s very social and has a lot of dog friends, who she knows by name. She wants her dog friends around a lot. All our friends started dropping off their dogs with us when they travel and now, we basically run an unofficial doggie daycare. Dogs have become a huge part of my life.  

Advice to a younger me: Save money from the moment money touches your hands or when you start working. When you get your first job, save! Build a nest egg. If I knew what I know now, I would have saved money from the moment the first coin dropped into my piggybank.  

Dream destination: I haven’t traveled much at all. Now that I have a husband and a child, my child is starting to want to travel. My dream destination is probably Greece. Pictures make it look so simple and carefree, like you could sit on a patio and breath the air and be just happy.