Irene Amato, the CEO behind A.S.A.P Mortgage and a quintessential New Yorker through and through, is a machine, mastering the art of having lived several lives and still having the gusto to embrace new endeavors. To put it into perspective, Amato went from robocalling customers in a cubicle to running a tanning salon and, eventually, her multi-branch mortgage company.

Born and raised in The Bronx, Amato’s journey is as bold and diverse as New York City itself. With a voice as raspy as the subway echoes, she commands attention and respect in every room she enters. And being from the city that never sleeps, it’s a miracle that she even lets herself rest. “Four to five hours is enough sleep for me,” she says.

The spirit of New York’s hustle and bustle culture influences Amato’s ship-steering of her company. Named after her three children — A.S.A.P stands for Alexa, Stephanie, and Peter — her business has a double entendre: although it’s named after what drives Amato to be her best, “A.S.A.P” also is her guarantee to customers that they will get their mortgage as soon as possible.

A.S.A.P Mortgage had humble beginnings in 2001, operating out of Amato’s basement while her three children ran around. Flash forward to present-day where A.S.A.P boasts an average loan size of over $420,000 last year, with the company producing north of $140 million across five branches. Its website touts an average of 15 days to every close and was named by Westchester Magazine as both “The Best Mortgage Broker in Westchester 2015” and as a best place to work in 2022, citing perks such as monthly, complimentary professional social media photo shoots and company retreats to spots like Fort Lauderdale and Miraval Arizona Resort & Spa in Tucson. With Amato as the face of the company, A.S.A.P’s reviews are peppered with mentions of her name: “Irene runs a great office,” and “Irene was helpful [from] start to finish” are just a few of the 5-star ratings from recent customers.

Getting Into Mortgage

Amato grew up with what she describes as a “rough childhood,” losing both of her parents at a young age. With college not being on the table, Amato was expected to go to work and support herself. Two weeks after graduating high school, Amato got her first job at GMAC Finance. Working in a cubicle and tasked with robocalling GMAC customers defaulting on their car loans,

Her managers criticized Amato for taking too long on her phone calls. After weeks of harassment and getting written up four times, her head boss called her into his office. What he discovered was that Amato’s call logs showed a promising recovery rate; everyone Amato talked to wasn’t getting their cars repossessed “He asked me, ‘What are you doing differently? Others are doing more calls but are getting repossessed,’ and I told him that I was trying to get to the root of the problem. I took the time to figure out why people were late on their payments and how GMAC could help,” she explained. “He offered for me to take my manager’s job, but I declined. I knew the corporate world wasn’t for me when I felt judged for trying to help people.”

After quitting the robocalling gig and briefly working as a bookkeeper, Amato embraced the gnarly trends of the 1980s and opened her first tanning boutique called Endless Summer Tanning Salon. “I did it all myself, even without a dollar to my name,” she said. “I leased the equipment, put up sheetrock, and had a friend help me with the electric.”

Amato sold that salon, opened another in Yonkers, and sold that one when she was pregnant with her first child.

In the 1990s, Amato raised her three young children and did bookkeeping for a payphone company. When that company went under, Amato briefly opened her own company of the same kind. “I didn’t want to be a slave to a business,” she explained. “I wasn’t helping people and I wanted to do that.”

So, she turned to mortgages.

Irene named A.S.A.P Mortgage after her children, Alexa, Stephanie, and Peter, and also represents the promise of a fast close to her customers.

Irene’s “Why”

After joining the industry officially in 1996, Amato tucked five years of experience under her belt and made her debut as CEO of her own company in 2001. After originating up until 2017, Amato is now the face of her company, networking with real estate agents and passing business onto her team, which is about 30 employees across seven branches. It’s what she’s wanted ever since her days of bookkeeping.

“I’ve always wanted to be the owner because I knew what it was like to work those long hours and do the dirty work,” she says. “Now I have the freedom to choose. I can work from home, be on the road for appointments, or go visit my branches. It’s very in tune with what I’m feeling, and I’ve built my life that way.”

Amato’s home office tells a lot about her “why” — the reason that she does what she does. The recipient of many accolades such as both “Best Businesswoman” and “Best Mortgage Broker” by Westchester Magazine, her walls don’t reflect one of an award winner. Amato instead has family photos and collages each of her children made when they were in the fourth grade on the wall. A quote on the wall by author R.S. Grey reads, “She believed she could, so she did.”

“One of my company’s taglines is ‘Your home, our heart,’ and it’s because we focus on our impact and our ‘why’ we’re in the business,” Amato explained. “Loan originators don’t realize how much of someone’s life they have in their hands and they’re trusted with, and I think they take that for granted. It’s not about how much money you make it’s about the lives you change.”

Amato boasts her top-tier team as being part of her “why.” “I’m not looking to be the biggest or make the most money; I’m looking to build the best team, and that means everyone being in sync with the company’s core values,” she said. “My company has long-term retention. My operation manager has been with me from the start. Most of my employees have been here for about 10 years.”

Jennifer Maldonado is one of those employees. “I have worked with Irene for 10 years and have known her on a professional and personal level more than twice as long,” she said. “Irene’s work ethic in the industry is unmatched. For [herself] and each person that works with her, taking an application and completing the mortgage is not a transaction. Irene truly gets to know her clients and what is important to them to ensure that she advocates in their best interest.”

Maldonado, a branch manager for the company’s Cortlandt Manor, New York, office, noted that she looks up to Amato in the workplace. “I admire that Irene is a forward thinker for the positive good. She questions the commonalities and challenges herself and those around her to rise up, do better, and be better,” she said. “Customer service and direct honesty to the client are Irene’s strengths and the reason why clients will refer their family and friends.”

John Ferrara, branch manager for A.S.A.P’s Fort Lauderdale location, has worked with Amato for just over five years. What he says Amato brings to the table, other than a strong company culture and environment, is her values. “She has very high family values,” he said. “That reflects deeply in her business and to her employees. She’s a straight shooter and tells you as it is.”

It’s not about how much money you make, it’s about the lives you change.

Breaking Beyond Business

Amato admits that being a CEO is more than a full-time job. “It’s juggling a lot of hats, and it is draining. But most people assume I never have time for myself, but they don’t see when I come home, shut off my phone, and turn on Netflix,” she said. “I sometimes stay home for a whole day to recharge my battery … I’m a homebody at heart. But I arrange my calendar so I still enjoy my life. I never have a day filled from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. If I have a heavy morning, I want a lighter schedule at night. And I allow time for things that aren’t mortgage-related.”

Amato remembers what it was like “being a slave to the business” and does activities outside of pricing loans to allow for her other passion projects. For one, Amato loves to write, and she’s commanded authorship from her hobby, being a member of the Forbes Business Council — which includes submitting pieces for the publication — as well as writing a book called “Home At Last,” a homebuying guide. “I saw a lot of first-time buyers and renters being misled, and I felt they needed something to give them the raw truth and hold them accountable,” she said. “[The book includes] the things that are needed from you as a buyer or from the lender … for anyone that’s read that book, the bar has been raised in terms of customer service.”

Amato didn’t want to see another generation of first-time homebuyers feel dumb for asking questions or, worse, afraid of asking them altogether. “It’s not just for first-timers either. There are tips for veteran buyers, divorced buyers, single buyers, and people who assume they can’t buy without a partner,” she said. “Clients don’t deserve to be put in a box.”

The same principles Amato details in her book also apply to another side hustle: life coaching for clients and non-clients concerned about how to navigate complex issues surrounding home buying and abstract concepts such as goal-setting.

But Amato wasn’t satisfied with just coaching and the book. She had intentions to write and publish a memoir, but her book writer, Robert Schork, passed away in his sleep shortly before the book was finished. Grappling with grief and unsure how to move forward, Amato subconsciously pulled parts of her memoir and transformed them into a series of vignettes and wrote a script for a play, using themes such as loss, narcissistic relationships, bullying, and addiction. “I wanted to create something that didn’t tell people how to feel, I wanted whoever was in the audience to feel something and walk out of there identifying with something,” she said.

Amato wrote feverishly and came up with “The OH Show,” a motivational speaker-style play that talks about what Amato sums up as the good, the bad, and the ugly. Her daughter directed it, selecting acquaintances and local actors to play parts. “I chose the name because the word ‘Oh’ is used differently in every scene, whether it’s a surprised ‘Oh!’ or a sad, exaggerated ‘Oh …’,” she said. “At the end of the show, I came out as the keynote speaker and shared my story.”

The show had a one-time date at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill in November 2023. Amato anticipated that she would be lucky if 50 people came. She wound up with an audience of 400. “I had no expectations going into this. I wanted to share my story because, from a distance, it looks like I have it all together,” she said. “But that’s not true, and how can I empower people unless they know that and know what I went through? I want people to feel like they can do what I did, too.”