Joe Tyrrell Named Optimal Blue CEO

Former ICE Mortgage exec Joe Tyrrell has been named CEO of Optimal Blue.

Tyrrell brings more than two decades of mortgage, finance, and technology experience to the position. He previously served as president of ICE Mortgage Technology and chief operating officer of Ellie Mae prior to its acquisition in 2020.

His most recent position was CEO of Medallia, a customer and employee experience company.

“I have always been attracted to companies that make their clients’ success their top priority, and that is especially true with Optimal Blue, the clear market leader in secondary marketing technology,” said Tyrrell. 

“For the past year and a half, I have been delivering innovation and real generative AI capabilities to the largest and most trusted consumer, health care, hospitality, financial services, and technology brands in the world, and I am excited to now bring those capabilities to Optimal Blue’s lenders and partners in an industry that I love.”

Optimal Blue has been hunting for a new leader since former CEO Kevin McMahon left the company shortly after its sale to Constellation Software. It was previously part of Black Knight, and was sold as part of an agreement to push through Black Knight’s contested merger with ICE.

Tyrrell succeeds interim Constellation CEO Scott Smith. Smith will continue on as president of Andromeda, a portfolio in which Optimal Blue operates, as well as oversee the CEO transition.

“It was a priority to identify the right leader to support our investment in Optimal Blue and the long-term success of the business,” said Smith.

 “We’ve found that and more with Joe Tyrrell, who is passionate about client relationships and innovation – two tenets that have been core to Optimal Blue’s culture throughout its decades as a market leader. Joe’s extensive experience in this industry affords him a fundamental understanding of the needs and challenges lenders face and ways innovative technology and real-time data can solve them.”

Texas-based Optimal Blue is a leader in mortgage secondary market technology. It operates a platform that allows originators and investors to automate and optimize core processes related to product, pricing, eligibility, hedge analytics, MSR valuation, loan trading, social media compliance, and counterparty oversight.

This year, the company has also onboarded a new COO and CMO.