She Did It Her Way: Shonna Cardello’s Trailblazing Journey in Title Insurance

At just 25, Shonna Cardello made a decision that would define the rest of her life. Fresh out of college with a paralegal degree and a firm belief that real estate law was painfully dull, she found herself pulled into the industry anyway. After a short stint lobbying in Harrisburg, she took a job as a paralegal for a local attorney, and from there, transitioned to an abstracting company, where her work ethic and quick thinking quickly made her indispensable.

Then came the offer: a group of clients asked her to help launch a new title company, promising to send business her way. At the time, she was earning $7.75 an hour, working 30 hours a week, and supplementing her income by waitressing. The offer was a gamble, but the chance to run something on her own terms was too compelling to ignore.

On July 17, 1996, White Rose Settlement Services was born. And in her very first week, the FBI raided her office.

Shonna had been sharing space with a mortgage broker who, it turned out, was fabricating appraisals - at one point even inventing a property in the middle of the local fairgrounds. “I was 25, calling my underwriter, ‘This is going to blow up,’” Shonna recalls. Her underwriter advised her to lock her filing cabinets, shut down her computer nightly, and stay vigilant. The broker went to jail. Shonna stayed in business.

That first crisis could have (or maybe should have) scared her off. Instead, it set the tone for everything that came after.

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Forged in Fire

In 1996, launching a title company at 25 was virtually unheard of, especially for a woman, in a male-dominated industry that favored gray hair and long résumés. Shonna quickly realized she’d have to act with confidence long before she felt it.

“I learned I had to think and act like a man,” she says. “Walk into a room like I owned it.” That confidence was instilled early by her mother, who made her order her own food from the time she could talk. It became her superpower. Whether it was a chamber event, a real estate mixer, or a banker happy hour, Shonna showed up, shook hands, handed out coffee mugs and pens, and followed up.

The hustle was nonstop.

She worked 60 to 70 hours a week.

One Chance, One Advocate

White Rose’s early days weren’t glamorous. For the first year, Shonna ran the entire operation herself, closing five or six settlements a month. It was just enough to cover bills. Her calendar was scribbled with notes like “pay phone bill” and “pay rent,” each tied to the next expected closing.

But her persistence paid off, thanks in large part to a few people who believed in her. Molly Jones, a fierce, no-nonsense realtor, followed her from the abstracting world to White Rose, demanding that Shonna be present at meetings and introducing her to everyone who mattered. “Molly was my first advocate,” Shonna says. “She set me on my path.”

Another local titan, Rick Smith, threw her a deal a month. It wasn’t much for him, but everything for her. “You just need one person to give you a shot,” she says. “Then the word spreads.”

By year three, things were shifting. She hired her first full-time assistant and a title searcher named Dave, who’s still with her 27 years later. For the first time, Shonna felt the weight of what she was building. “This wasn’t just about me anymore. I was responsible for their families. It had to work."

The Original Disruptor

Well before innovation was a buzzword in title insurance, Shonna was rewriting the rules.

She was the first in her market to deliver digital closing documents on CDs along with paper documents. She offered enhanced title policies before they were industry standard. She branded her business with purple, which at the time a radical choice in a sea of red, blue, and yellow. “I wanted to stand out,” she says. She still jokes that the Baltimore Ravens, who launched the same year, “stole her color.”

These moves weren’t just cosmetic. They were calculated decisions to position White Rose as modern, tech-forward, and unapologetically different. And when others eventually followed, Shonna didn’t mind. “We’re gracious,” she says. “We’ll help our competitors. But we’re doing it our way.”

From Hustle to Legacy

Today, White Rose is a respected force in the industry, with 17 team members and a client list that spans generations. The company now handles a large number of settlements each month, a huge leap from the 40 to 60 she once managed.

That growth didn’t come without growing pains. Mentors helped her learn the art of delegation. “If you don’t delegate, you’re not running a company. You’re just working yourself to death,” she says.


Letting go of daily closings allowed her to focus on building culture and systems. She embraced mistakes as learning opportunities and invested deeply in her team, many of whom have been with her from the start.

Now, Shonna calls herself the “figurehead queen of England”—still active, but trusting her team to lead. She travels, speaks at industry events and TEDx, and advocates for women in leadership. But White Rose remains her proudest accomplishment.

“I want us to be known for making a difference,” she says. “Not just for the business, but in our community.”

Shonna Cardello’s story is one of resilience, vision, and fearless reinvention. She didn’t just survive a volatile industry, she defined her own version of success inside it. She sacrificed, she persevered, and she grew a one-woman hustle into a company that now anchors hundreds of families, including her own.

And through it all, she never stopped doing it her way.