Valerie King
I grew up in Boise, Idaho, and my high school class consisted of 13 people. 40% of the school came from countries around the world. I earned an international baccalaureate degree and knew from the age of 12 I wanted to go to school in Boston. My younger brother went the opposite route—he headed to Portland, OR. I went to Wellesley College (right outside of Boston—close enough) and majored in theatre studies and anthropology. I was the president of the Shakespeare Society and I directed three plays in college; I acted in/produced/sound designed for maybe 25 more. I have lived in Idaho, Boston, New York City, Jamaica, St. Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco. I ended up in Philadelphia and this is my third stint living here—I just can’t stay away. I bought a house here—now I also can’t move away. I have a tech background and I’ve done some political campaigning. I’ve always been sales or sales-adjacent, but my passion is coaching. My husband is from Germany and my dog is from Kensington. He is a pug-cocker spaniel who is very lazy and very funny. I am childfree by choice. I am the Demand Gen/SDR Manager at Marlin Capital Solutions. I like people who are funny, intelligent, and generous. All day, I seek to laugh, make other people laugh, and shine a flashlight through the dark tunnel of one person’s career. I’m excited to work with you all.
Rich Irwin
Richard Irwin is SVP and Chief Financial Officer at Marlin. Mr. Irwin is responsible for overseeing the company’s Accounting, Financial Planning & Analysis, Tax, and Treasury teams. Mr. Irwin joined Marlin as Treasurer, relaunching the Term ABS program after an 8-year hiatus, streamlining the syndicated secondary marketing process, assisting in M&A and due diligence activities, as well as overseeing the company’s general pricing strategy. Prior to joining Marlin in 2016, Mr. Irwin spent over 19 years at CIT Group Inc., holding various positions in Corporate Accounting, Treasury Risk Management, Funding, and Mergers & Acquisitions. During his time at CIT, Mr. Irwin was responsible for certain fundings of the US and Canadian Vendor Finance, US Factored Receivable, and the Global Aerospace and Rail portfolios as well as analyzing over 75 M&A transactions including the US acquisition of Direct Capital and CIT’s divestitures in Asia, Europe, and South America. Mr. Irwin earned a BS in Finance and an MBA from Rutgers University, earned the Certified Treasury Professional designation, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder.
Tara Berlingo
Tara has 15 plus years of HR experience, six of which have been spent at Peoples United Bank. She has supported a variety of different groups including corporate, sales, engineering and service across a variety of industries. She has been involved with 10 mergers and acquisitions throughout her career. Tara also has had the opportunity to manage, mentor and coach numerous people throughout her career. She served on the board of the western branch of the Society for Human Resources Management from 2006-2011 in the position of Chair of Student Affairs and Co-Chair of Community Affairs. She has a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing from Manhatanville College and an undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from Salve Regina University. She also holds certificates in Mediation as well as Dale Carnegie. Tara currently lives in Stamford, Connecticut and works out of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Matt Diehl
I wear many hats at LEAF - which makes my role fun and exciting. I work closely with LEAF’s multiple business lines, shared services, parent organization, and external partners to serve our customers and advance our mission. My wife and I live in New Jersey with our two young children and feisty terrier. I was previously an entrepreneur, which led me to develop a passion for business strategy and creating unique growth opportunities.
Jake Nguyen
Seasoned credit risk professional with over 10 years of experience in the equipment finance industry with proven record of developing high performance teams in a banking regulated environment, specialize in bridging internal and external partners to achieve desire outcome on small and middle ticket transactions.
Rita Garwood
Rita Garwood is editor in chief of trade magazines Monitor, serving the equipment finance industry; ABF Journal, serving the commercial finance and asset-based lending industry; DealMaker, the magazine of the National Alliance of Commercial Loan Brokers and Commercial Factor, the magazine of the International Factoring Association.
Her 20 years of interviewing experience have come in handy as the host of Monitor Podcast+ and the DealMaker Talks video series.
Rita serves as managing editor of Monitor and DealMaker magazines, and she collaborates with the equipment finance industry to produce Monitor’s annual rankings, including the Monitor 100.
In addition to her current role, Rita has operated Garwood Writing and Editing Services, a Philadelphia-based freelance writing and editing business, since 2006. She specializes in topics related to commercial finance, and she has taken on assignments involving education, non-profits, and technology.
Experienced in public relations and marketing, Rita writes articles, blogs, press releases, newsletter content and marketing materials. She has also helped organizations create marketing calendars and manage their social media presence.
In 2013 to 2014, Rita served as research assistant to a doctoral candidate and conducted a series of interviews with educators after obtaining a NIH Protecting Human Subject Research Participants Certificate from The National Institutes of Health.
Currently, Rita serves on the auction committee of Charlestown Playhouse, a non-profit, parent-cooperative preschool that emphasizes learning through child-centered play. She manages marketing and social media campaigns for the school’s annual auction fundraisers, and she interviews teachers each month for the school’s newsletter.
Rita served as a Girl Scout troop leader from 2014 to 2019. During that time, she obtained Outdoor Overnight Training certification from Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania, took a troop of 12 girls on many overnight camping adventures and served as ‘cookie mom’ for three years.
Rita graduated magna cum laude from Kutztown University’s professional writing program in 2006 where she studied journalism, magazine writing, public relations, creative writing, copy and line editing and business writing.
In her spare time, Rita enjoys spending time with her husband and three children, reading, hiking, forest bathing, cooking with fresh organic produce from her local CSA, and pretending to be a photographer.
Joseph Turner
Joseph Turner is a Vice President responsible for Strategy and Analytics for Business Capital and has been with the firm since 2016. Joseph began his career at the bank through its two-year Finance Development Program and after three years in Finance transitioned into a role within Business Capital in 2019. He joined the bank straight after graduating from the University of North Florida (UNF) with dual Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in Finance and Economics. While in school, Joseph served as Student Body President and a Trustee on the UNF Board.
Lilia Romero
I have been in the finance industry for 16 years with more than 10 years focusing on title operations. I joined Dakota in 2016 as a “Customer Service/Title Analyst”. During my time at Dakota, I have held different roles, such as Lease Coordinator, Asset Management and more recently as the Title Department Manager. I helped Dakota create our title department and grow from a 1-person department to a 7-person department. I live in Los Angeles and when I’m not keeping busy with work, I spend my time with family and friends.
Brian Dundon
Brian Dundon joined First Financial in 2013 and currently serves as Senior Vice President. In this role, he oversees First Financial's credit, syndication, and portfolio management activities, with the ultimate goal of empowering First Financial and his colleagues to make well-informed, forward-thinking business decisions that will bring long-term benefit to its customers. Brian was drawn to leasing and finance after the Great Recession in 2008 and has since dedicated his 10+ year career to being a facilitator for smart, responsible business. Prior to joining First Financial, he was the Senior Credit Analyst for CHG-MERIDIAN’s U.S. operations, joining shortly after its founding in 2009.
Brian holds a B.A. in Economics from Wheaton College in Massachusetts. When not at work, he can be found baking artisan bread with his wife and daughter and finding new and creative ways to use CSA produce.
David Miles
David B. Miles, Jr. was born and raised in Norwalk, CT. I would consider myself part of the “latchkey generation” of kids that were raised by working parents who needed to establish independence and self-sufficiency at an early age. This upbringing would ultimately shape and positively contribute to the man I would later become. If I could point to one significant childhood event that would change the course of my life, I would say it was my parent’s decision to place me in private school after I completed elementary school. From grades 6 through 12, I attended St. Luke’s School which is an elite private school located in New Canaan, CT. I believe this educational environment with smaller classrooms and a lower student/teacher ratio helped me reach my academic potential.
I graduated from St. Luke’s School in Spring 1997 and attended Wagner College in Fall 1997 on a partial athletic (football) scholarship. After a year at Wagner College, I decided that I needed a change in environment and transferred to Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. After my first semester at Morehouse, while home for Winter break, my mother passed away unexpectedly at the age of 46. I was 19 at the time. I was urged by some family members to stay home and take time off to deal with the sudden loss. I decided to return to school and continue my studies while also participating in Track & Field. Morehouse College was expensive so in order to lower costs I decided to eliminate Room and Board expenses and moved off campus. In doing so, I could no longer run Track because I had to work in order to pay expenses incurred from living off campus. In Spring 2002, I graduated from Morehouse College with my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Management.
After working various sales and banking jobs in the Atlanta area post-graduation, I decided to come home to Connecticut in 2006. Hitachi Capital America Corp (now Mitsubishi HC Capital America) gave me my start in Equipment finance in the capacity of a Jr. Credit Analyst. I immediately knew that I found my niche and underwriting was what I wanted to do with my career. All was going well at Hitachi until the Great Recession hit and I was subsequently laid off in February 2009. I would later come to realize that this event was one of the biggest blessings of my career. In May 2009, a recruiter reached out and presented me with an opportunity to interview with a small but growing finance company specializing in Coin Laundromat financing, Eastern Funding LLC. During that time, the credit market was mostly frozen with companies either laying off/furloughing Credit professionals and/or halting lending operations. I interviewed well and didn’t think twice about accepting the position as a Credit Analyst.
I performed well as a Credit Analyst during my first few years at Eastern Funding and was promoted to Senior Credit Analyst in January 2012. In October 2012, Eastern Funding launched Specialty Equipment Vehicle Group (SVEG) and the Credit Team Leader at that time transferred to that division. This created the opportunity for me to lead the team and I was promoted to Credit Team Leader. Over the course of the next several years I was fortunate to be involved in many significant projects including but not limited to:
Miser to Jack Henry Conversion (back end system)
Paperless Conversion/Transition to Synergy
Advantage to Vision Conversion (front end Originations system)
Vision to Vision XV Conversion
Vision XV to nCino Conversion
I am grateful to have also contributed to the growth and success of Eastern Funding LLC over the years. I have held titles including Credit Analyst, Senior Credit Analyst, Credit Team Leader, AVP and my current title of Vice President of Credit. I am now being promoted to VP, Director of Credit. In 2022, I will be working on ensuring the successful merger of Eastern Funding and Macrolease. I will also be focused on leading and making an impact at the executive level. I am confident the STRIPES leadership program will assist me in achieving these initiatives.
Ana Lage
My name is Ana Lage, I have been in the finance industry for 23 years. I am currently the AVP Documentation Manager at Eastern Funding LLC where I have been employed for almost 10 years. In addition to managing the documentation department I also focus on improving workflows and creating enhancements in originations. I am a critical member of the conversion team that successfully converted Eastern Funding’s enterprise platform. I am very enthusiastic about operational excellence passionate about my team’s growth and continuous improvement. Finally, I also chair 3 very active employee focused committees.