Tell us first about yourself and Cross River.

I am the Executive Senior Vice President and Chief Lending Officer at Cross River, where I leverage almost twenty-seven years of banking, credit and lending experience to lead our commercial lending team. When I joined Cross River shortly after its founding, my goal was to build the Bank’s Commercial Real Estate (CRE) lending platform and I built our team with a focus on relationships and the client experience as the foundation. We approach our business with a customer-first attitude and maintain an intimate knowledge of the client and his/her business. Due in part to this focus, our team has successfully originated more than $2B in CRE loans with above industry average NIMs coupled with $0 losses / defaults to the bank. Almost 15 years later, I remain directly involved in the portfolio management of these loans, including the successful sale and participation of whole and partial loans to other community and regional banks, totaling more than $850M. I’m on numerous bank committees including CRA, ALLL, ALCO, OMC, loan committee, credit committee in addition to LICO.

Cross River is a state-chartered, FDIC-regulated bank and full-stack financial technology infrastructure provider, powering some of the largest fintech companies. We leverage our proprietary real-time banking core to deliver innovative and scalable embedded payments, cards and lending solutions. Our two banking branches in Teaneck and Brooklyn serve clients with personal and business banking services, including savings accounts, checking accounts and CDs.

And Cross River plays a significant role in the local community here, is that right?

Yes, our commitment to our community began the day we opened our doors. Cross River was founded on the tenets of community and giving, and we are constantly looking for opportunities to connect with and support our communities—both in our backyard and around the world. Our philanthropic arm, Foundation@ Cross River, supports programs and projects that provide not-for-profit community organizations with the funds and services needed to achieve their goals.

We partner with local organizations like the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce to provide lifeline grants to minority small business owners through our Small Business Grant program with the Chamber. In 2022 alone, we provided over $200,000 to local businesses in need via the program. We also work with groups like Operation Hope to offer Hope Inside Cross River at both our branch locations, which has seen incredible success. Hope Inside Cross River provides financial literacy education and financial planning to empower local small business owners and individuals, arming them with the tools they need on their path to financial stability and freedom.

Read the rest of the Q&A here