About
Seroka

A mortgage and real estate industry agency with deep roots

For over 30 years, companies across the mortgage and real estate industries have turned to us for branding and marketing support.

Seroka was founded in 1987 by Pat Seroka with one client; a small mortgage firm with big dreams, tremendous energy, and the courage to lead. In just five years, the firm became the largest independent mortgage company in Chicago and a few years after that, it was sold to the largest bank in Illinois. Since then, Seroka has grown its client-base throughout the United States, with a continued focus on serving the mortgage and real estate industries from its Midwest and East Coast offices.

At Seroka, we ensure your brand takes center stage and truly resonates with your target audience. We will show you the right path to meet your growth objectives and beat your competition through strategic brand development and marketing activities.

Our approach is designed to meet your individual needs. Whether you are looking for comprehensive services, or help with a specific campaign, our experienced team of branding and marketing professionals can help you achieve the results you need to be successful. Let us put our 30+ years of experience to work for you!

Consider making our experience your competitive advantage.

Leadership Team

Not our team, but your team

PAT SEROKA – CHAIRMAN & CEO

“Strong brands will thrive with little advertising and weak brands will fail with extensive advertising”

Pat founded the agency in 1987, the natural culmination from years spent studying why people select one brand over another and the motivations behind brand selection. His agency’s reputation built rapidly gaining national recognition in the mortgage arena through joint ventures with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Pat has been named Entrepreneur of the Year and has been frequently published in numerous mortgage publications. He is a member of the Porsche Club, holds a Competition Racing License for weekend fun, and enjoys traveling with his wife Linda.

JOHN SEROKA – PRESIDENT

“If you do not take control of your brand, somebody else will.”

John plays a key role in agency leadership and strategic initiatives that drive growth. He began his career as a mortgage loan originator in the Los Angeles and Orange County markets and is the current Chairman of the California MBA’s Mortgage Technology and Marketing Committee. He is a frequent speaker on mortgage industry trade show panels on various marketing and branding-related topics.

He graduated from Marquette University with a BA in Business and Broadcast and Electronic Communications and his interests include nutrition, fitness and outdoor activities.

SCOTT SEROKA, Six Sigma LBBP – CHIEF BRAND STRATEGIST |AUTHOR | SPEAKER

“A brand can be the difference between a sale and no sale.”

Scott leads the agency’s brand development and culture division. Some of his notable accomplishments include building brands and cultural infrastructures for numerous companies in the manufacturing and mortgage industries, ranging from global Fortune 500 organizations to smaller, privately held firms.

He is a Six Sigma Lean Black Belt Professional and is adept at employing Six Sigma and Kaizen methodologies to create strong, lasting brands and the cultures to support them.

Scott resides in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, with his wife and daughter. He is an avid photographer, and in his former life, he performed at The Second City improvisational theater in Chicago and was a stand-up comic in the Chicago and Milwaukee

AMY HANSEN – VICE PRESIDENT PUBLIC RELATIONS AND STRATEGIC PLANNING

“A well thought-out strategy yields much greater results than rolling out a series of tactics.”

Amy oversees client relationships and fosters an environment focused on getting Seroka’s clients results. She brings more than 20 years of marketing experience to her clients and plays a leading role in guiding campaign strategies. Throughout her career, Amy has established strong relationships with clients, key media and industry associations.

Most of her free time is spent at one of her son’s sporting events or with her family and friends.

RACHEL DRAGE – ACCOUNT SUPERVISOR

“Marketing is a lot like trying a new recipe, it may not turn out the first time, but with some adjustments to your approach, you will eventually get it right.”

Rachel helps clients put the spark back in their marketing. Whether she is helping clients secure coverage with media outlets or increase their brand awareness on social media, Rachel is driven by her clients’ successes.

Prior to working for Seroka, Rachel spent over 12 years working for various agencies and corporations managing their marketing activities. She also worked as the Communications Director for the city of Williston in North Dakota during the oil boom where she had the opportunity to work with business leaders and media outlets from all over the world.

In her free time, Rachel enjoys spending time with family and friends, running, yoga, gardening, and baking.

ERICA VANDEE – ACCOUNT SUPERVISOR

“No matter what business you’re in, your decisions are only as good as the information they’re based on.”

Erica joined Seroka in 2022 with an extensive B2C and creative background. She received her Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia with an Art minor.

Erica began her career in publication design and art direction then pivoted to marketing more than 10 years ago. She loves helping clients reach their full potential through all mediums of marketing, and her communications and design background lends itself well to navigating the gap between clients and creatives.

Outside of work, Erica enjoys traveling, spending time with family and friends, baking, music, art, her dog Luna, and meeting every dog wherever life takes her.

CELESTE CZAICKI – CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Celeste has shown talent as an artist since she was a young child, her kindergarten teacher predicted that she would be an artist,and the prediction held true.

Celeste earned her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Graphic Design from Mount Mary University; Milwaukee, WI and has been a professional designer for more than 25 years. She began her career as an in-house designer for a printer and then quickly made the move to the agency side. She has a background in leading creative vision, ideation, strategy, and execution. She has extensive experience working in the healthcare, financial, higher education and service industries. And has been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on accounts such as Johnson Controls, Briggs & Stratton, Aurora Healthcare, Time Warner, GE Healthcare, Stephens College, Stetson University.

MIKE SLOWIK – CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Mike brings over 20 years of marketing and design experience to the table in both agency and in-house settings. He’s designed for local, national and international clients in industries including B2B, mortgage, finance, healthcare, sporting goods, news/magazine publication and manufacturing. Through the years, Mike has shared his expansive knowledge of design and marketing while instructing courses at the college level. Mike understands that although great design is creative, it is not universal. It needs to be tailored for each client. He strives to learn about each client and find that impactful place were creativity meets common sense in every project.

In his free time, Mike enjoys being on the sidelines with his wife cheering on their daughter and son at soccer and martial arts events. As an art major, he still enjoys the fine arts, but admits he has done more painting of interior house walls than stretched canvas in the last decade.

MARY-IRIS TAYLOR – SENIOR COPYWRITER

Mary-Iris joined Seroka in 2015 to lead the agency’s content development and copywriting services. She started her career in the financial services industry, and later moved to the agency side to pursue her passion for writing. Her financial services background served her well as she worked with clients in the banking, mutual fund, mortgage, investment and retirement services sectors.

Mary-Iris holds a BA in Journalism from Marquette University.

HERB GUENTHER – DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

Herb oversees SEO/SEM services and is part of the Digital Marketing team for clients. He leverages his engineering background in electrical and computer engineering to gain marketing insights from big data tools. He has 25 years of experience creating and optimizing websites for various clients in financial, medical, manufacturing, and other industries.

When not working, he enjoys gardening and cycling with friends and family along with his parrot Barney.

“Quote: Data drives Insight drives Action, rinse and repeat.”

Why Seroka

Mortgage and financial industry companies have been turning to seroka for brand development and marketing support since 1987

we invite you to join our continually growing list of successful clients

At Armada Analytics, we needed to create a stronger brand to solidify our market position and provide clarity to who we are and what we stand for. The branding knowledge and expertise Seroka brought to the table was just what we were looking for. Aside from Seroka’s ability to take us through the entire branding process, they also provided intelligent insights and ideas about how to organize and inspire a culture of excellence in everything we do. Working with Seroka was a pleasure – their actions always demonstrated a genuine desire for our success.

Matt Legge Chief Executive Officer

The Seroka group helped me execute a very important special project recently. It was refreshing to work with an agency partner who already understands the mortgage industry and all of the nuances that comes along with it. I found both John and Amy to be extremely professional, they brought innovative ideas to the table, kept the job on track, delivered on time and under budget. We were very pleased with the output.

Karen Fishman, Mortgage Marketing Leader

Seroka’s disciplined process of using research, drilling into the core of our brand and refreshing it resulted in a renewed focus and restored enthusiasm among our entire staff. Seroka’s team took our refreshed brand and immersed it into our marketing efforts which included collateral materials, social media campaigns and they provided unique ways to enhance our brand’s perception and awareness.

Steve Storti Chief Marketing Officer

Seroka’s depth of experience, particularly in working with mortgage bankers, was one of the primary reasons we selected them. It was a tremendous advantage for us to know that Seroka already had an understanding of what we do and what our struggles and goals were even before we started working with them.

Jean Badciong – Inlanta Mortgage

I started working with Seroka over a decade ago and have continued working with them throughout my career. Their in-depth knowledge and connections within the mortgage and fintech industries have been great assets to my marketing and PR efforts. Most recently, they assisted us at LendingQB with our marketing initiatives including producing our quarterly e-newsletters, promoting our webinars through emails and banner ads, creating our email campaigns and developing a dimensional mailer and trade show booth. I would recommend Seroka to anyone seeking a strong strategic marketing partner.

Linn Cook – LendingQB

We are excited to be continuing our relationship with Seroka. Their industry knowledge has proven to be of great value to us, and laid the groundwork for the marketing and public relations successes we’ve realized over the last year. Parkside Lending’s business is stronger as a result of our strategic partnership with Seroka.

Matthew Ostrander – Parkside Lending

As we moved forward I can confidently say that all of us at MSI are proud of our new brand, as it is a brand that we all believe in, and one that resonates very well with our customers and business partners. I would recommend Seroka to any company that is looking for a very strong brand development and strategic communications partner.

Mark Young – MSI

Pat Seroka and his team delivered to us exactly what we wanted, quickly and effectively, when upgrading our brand at The Mortgage Collaborative. <em>Listening</em> to a client about their needs is a learned and valuable skill set. Seroka Brand Development / Strategic Communications has mastered it!

David G. Kittle – Vice Chairman – The Mortgage Collaborative

For more than 17 years, we have exclusively used Seroka to build our brand and create our marketing strategy. Their results speak for themselves; we have become the fastest growing third-party verifications company in the country. Unequivocally, I would highly recommend Seroka to any organization that wants results and the right people with the right approach to maximize its marketing success.

Greg Holmes – Chief Revenue Officer – Xactus

Although Seroka is a very well-known and established agency in the mortgage/technology space, I had never worked with them personally. When I finally did, I couldn’t believe I waited so long! The team is extremely knowledgeable, easy to work with, and quickly adapted our voice and style of writing.

Shakria Hall, Senior Digital Content Manager

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I first met Pat early in both of our careers in the 80s. Our paths intersected frequently over the years, most recently with his firm creating and launching our Mortgage Advisory Partners brand and administering our marketing and public relations activities. Today our firms work together with several mutual clients to help them successfully navigate the tumultuous economic waves. For any mortgage or real estate industry company wishing to take their marketing to the next level, I would certainly recommend making Seroka’s experience your advantage.

Brian Hale CEO/Senior Advisor