Finance
The CRE Finance Council Announces New Chairs for Industry Forums
New Chairs and Chair-Elects Introduced at Annual June Conference
NEW YORK, June 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The CRE Finance Council (CREFC) announced today new Chairs for the 2024-2025 industry Forums. The new Forum leadership was introduced at CREFC’s Annual June Conference in New York City.
CREFC’s Forums represent specific market constituencies that drive the U.S. commercial real estate finance industry. Forums include:
- Alternative Lenders and High Yield Investors
- B-Piece Investors
- GSE/Multifamily Lenders
- Investment-Grade Bondholders
- Issuers
- Portfolio Lenders
- Servicers
Each of these Forums interacts and addresses issues critical to their business sector and works to achieve solutions that serve a common purpose. CREFC’s Forums manage disparate and converging market views, advocate a consensus of positions to policymakers and lawmakers, educate members, develop market best practices and standards, and work toward the betterment of the entire commercial real estate finance market.
The Incoming slate of Forum leaders includes:
Alternative Lenders & High Yield Investors. CREFC welcomes Rachel Hunter-Goldman (KKR) as Chair-Elect, Samantha Rotchford (MSD) as Chair, and Samir Tejpaul (Square Mile Capital Investments) as Past Chair.
B-Piece Investors. CREFC welcomes Frank Yin (KKR) as Chair-Elect, Peter Lindner (Rialto) as Chair, and Jason Nick (LNR) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, Lyndsay Stephenson (Prime Finance Partners) served as Past Chair.
GSE/Multifamily Lenders. CREFC welcomes David Haynes (CBRE) as Chair-Elect, Ahmed Hasan (Capital One) as Chair, and Kate Whalen (BMO) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, the Past Chair was Emily Schultz (Berkadia Commercial Mortgage). Alonzo White (Fannie Mae) and Jason Griest (Freddie Mac) serve as government-sponsored enterprise representatives.
Investment-Grade Bondholders. CREFC welcomes Adam Smith (DWS) as Chair-Elect, Rajesh Bansal (Quiq Capital) as Chair, and Richard Razza (Webster Bank) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, Jane Rivers (T. Rowe Price) served as Past Chair.
Issuers. CREFC welcomes Shaishav Agarwal (Deutsche Bank) as Chair-Elect, Brigid Mattingly (Wells Fargo) as Chair, and Jane Lam (Morgan Stanley) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, David Schell (BMO Capital Markets) served as Past Chair.
Portfolio Lenders – Banks. CREFC welcomes Kristin Khanna (Barclays) as Chair-Elect, Rob Grudzinski (U.S. Bank) as Chair, and Scott Dixon (Truist) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, Jonathan Salzinger (Bank of America) served as Past Chair.
Portfolio Lenders – Insurance Company. CREFC welcomes Melissa Farrell (PGIM) as Chair-Elect, Kevin Pivnick (Blackstone) as Chair, and Chris Miculis (Nuveen) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, Stefanie Stewart (Voya Investment Management) served as Past Chair.
Servicers – Servicing Administration. CREFC welcomes Dana Jo Martino (Berkadia) as Chair-Elect, Adam Fox (Fitch Ratings) as Chair, and Leslie Hayton (Wells Fargo) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, Stacy Ackermann (K&L Gates) served as Past Chair.
Servicers – Special Situations. CREFC welcomes Alex Killick (CWCapital) as Chair-Elect, Pam Dent (Freddie Mac) as Chair, and Tony Yousif (SVN) as Past Chair. In 2023-2024, Andrea Helm (Midland Loan Services) served as Past Chair.
“We want to welcome the new members of our CREFC industry Forums and thank existing and past Forum members for their dedication and excellent work,” said Lisa Pendergast, Executive Director of CREFC.
“For 30 years, CREFC has served as the voice of the now $6 trillion commercial real estate finance industry and CREFC’s industry Forums continue to play a key role in ensuring all industry voices are heard and respected. CREFC’s Forums serve a vital industry function, as they represent key components of the CRE finance markets. A core function of Forum leaders is to work toward consensus among their constituents and then advocate those positions to other market segments and to policy and lawmakers. Forum leaders are also charged with assisting the development of industry best practices and implementing new initiatives critical to their business sectors. I and the entire CREFC community are grateful for our Forum leaders and their contributions and dedication to CRE finance.”
About CREFC
The CRE Finance Council (CREFC) is the trade association for the nearly $6 trillion commercial real estate finance industry with a membership that includes more than 400 companies and 19,000 individuals. Member firms include balance sheet and securitized lenders, loan and bond investors, private equity firms, servicers, rating agencies, and borrowers. For 30 years, CREFC has promoted liquidity, transparency, and efficiency in the commercial real estate finance markets, and acted as a legislative and regulatory advocate for the industry, playing a vital role in setting market standards and best practices, and providing education for market participants.
SOURCE CRE Finance Council
Finance
Anne Arundel County Launches New Finance and Procurement Platform
Anne Arundel County is preparing to launch a new finance and e-procurement system to modernize county operations and improve how businesses interact with local government.
The new platform, called Harbor, is scheduled to go live in July and will replace the County’s legacy procurement system with a centralized cloud-based platform built on Oracle Fusion Cloud.
County officials say the new system is designed to streamline procurement and financial processes while making it easier for both existing and prospective vendors to do business with the County.
From the press release:
“Harbor is a much-needed upgrade that will streamline services for our county agencies and those who do business with the county,” said Anne Arundel County Chief Administrative Officer Christine Anderson.
The platform will serve as a single portal for supplier registration, bid opportunities, invoicing, payment tracking, and contract management, consolidating what had previously been spread across multiple systems. County leaders say the transition is part of a broader effort to modernize operations, improve efficiency, and lower barriers for businesses seeking to compete for county contracts.
For counties, procurement modernization remains an important operational priority as local governments look to improve transparency, strengthen vendor engagement, and simplify access for businesses of all sizes. Anne Arundel County has encouraged interested suppliers to review training materials and registration information ahead of the July launch.
Finance
Quadient Recognized as a Leader in the 2026 SPARK Matrix for Accounts Receivable Applications
Quadient demonstrates continued innovation in AI-driven invoice-to-cash automation and unified finance operations
Paris
Quadient (Euronext Paris: QDT), a global automation platform powering secure and sustainable business connections, announced today it has been recognized for the fifth consecutive year as a Leader in the 2026 SPARK Matrix™ for Accounts Receivable Applications by technology analyst and advisory firm QKS Group. Quadient strengthened its position in the report year-over-year, with a notable improvement in Technology Excellence, reflecting continued innovation in its AI-driven invoice-to-cash solution.
According to QKS Group, Quadient’s leadership position highlights its evolution into a comprehensive, AI-powered platform that delivers strong predictive accuracy and straight-through processing. The analyst firm also emphasized the capability of Quadient’s solutions to unify accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP), offering finance leaders greater visibility and insights into their business finances to make faster, better decisions on working capital management.
Earlier this month, Quadient announced the release of its new cash dashboard capability for AR and AP that allows finance teams to bring together traditionally siloed data in a single view. An AI assistant summarizes key metrics and provides analysis that helps finance leaders accelerate cash on hand, improve forecasting, reduce risk and uncover opportunities to optimize working capital.
“Quadient has established a strong position in the 2026 Accounts Receivable Automation market through its focus on intelligent automation, cash flow optimization and integrated financial operations,” said Sanjeevi C R, associate vice president, Enterprise Research at QKS Group. “The platform’s evolution from predictive analytics to AI-driven autonomous collections execution represents a meaningful step forward in reducing manual effort across the invoice-to-cash cycle. What differentiates Quadient is its ability to combine collections management, cash application, and payment processing with a unified accounts receivable and accounts payable ecosystem, providing finance leaders with a more holistic view of working capital performance. By enabling greater automation, enhanced cash flow visibility, and more efficient receivables operations, Quadient continues to deliver measurable value for organizations seeking to modernize their financial processes and improve liquidity management.”
QKS Group highlighted the following key strengths for Quadient AR:
Finance
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