Forbes Anderson, Chief Strategy Officer & CFO, CiCi’s Enterprises, LP
Forbes joined CiCi Enterprises in 1996. He is responsible for all aspects of the finance, accounting, technology and administrative functions for CiCi’s and JMC Distribution, CiCi’s purchasing and distribution services company.

Gene Baldwin, Partner, CRG Partners Group, LLC
Gene has more than 32 years of interim management and advisory experience. He is a corporate leader with a well-established reputation for his ability to assess, develop and implement operational and financial improvement initiatives that enhance the value for stakeholders.

Bob Coleman, Editor, The Coleman Report
Bob is the owner of Coleman Publishing, an online media company that provides critical analytical information for small business lenders. He is the nationally recognized expert about main street access to capital issues. He is a frequent contributor for Fox Business News and has been quoted by all major financial media outlets including CNN, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg about main street access to capital issues

Larry Conley, Senior Vice President & SBA Manager, JPMorgan Chase
Larry is senior vice president and national specialty finance manager of JPMorgan Chase. He has experience in most all forms of lending, equipment leasing, real estate appraisal, loan work out, and community development.

Greg Esgar, Chief Financial Officer, Massage Envy
Greg works closely with franchisees and regional developers to support them with financing, state and federal compliance, real estate procurement and insurance requirements. Since joining Massage Envy in 2004, Greg has been instrumental in the company’s impressive revenue and unit growth, making it one of the nation’s most recognized and respected franchise opportunities.

Randy Evans, Shareholder, Monroe Moxness Berg PA
Randy is an attorney who specializes in banking and corporate finance at Monroe Moxness Berg. He is an expert in devising and crafting franchise finance programs for franchisors and lending institutions.

Ron Feldman, CEO, Franchise America Finance
Ron has been with Siegel since 2003, and formed Franchise America Finance in 2010 to help bring a capital solution to franchisees of various franchise concepts. Ron’s experience gives him great insight to discuss the complexities and opportunity within today’s capital markets.

Phil Friedman, CEO, Salsarita’s
Phil is a highly regarded C level executive recently chairman, chief executive officer and president of McAlister’s Corporation, a rapidly growing quick casual concept he acquired along with a group of investors in 1999. Operating and franchising restaurants in 22 states McAlister’s grew from 27 to 300 restaurants during his leadership.

Tony Gioia, CEO, Togo’s Holdings LLC
Tony is an accomplished C-Level executive, board member, investor and strategic advisor, spanning decades of business building achievements within the restaurant, grocery, packaged foods, beverage and consumer products industries. In December 2007 Tony partnered with Mainsail Partners, a mid-level private equity buyout firm to acquire Togo’s Eateries, a 245 retail unit premium sandwich concept from Dunkin’ Brands Inc.

David Grossman, President, Renue Systems, Inc.
David is the owner and president of Renue Systems, a provider of comprehensive deep cleaning services primarily to the hospitality industry. The company is a franchisor with 25 domestic and two international offices. Prior to his involvement with the company, he spent nearly ten  years with several investment funds including GSO Capital, Kohlberg Capital and TD Capital where he invested both equity and debt primarily in small and mid-size companies.

Chris Hurn, CEO/Co-Founder, Mercantile Capital Corporation
Chris has a long history of financing franchise real estate for entrepreneurs, and continues to be an expert as a leading financier in the SBA 504 loan market. He brings to the table an expert knowledge on how to best incorporate the 504 to help grow your franchise company.

Julie Huston, President, SBA Division, U.S. Bancorp
As president of U.S. Bank SBA Division, Julie oversees small business administration lending from San Diego, California. Julie has been part of the SBA and franchise lending community since 1986. Her passion for small business has translated into building programs, developing products and improving delivery systems and methods to ensure that business owners receive the funding and services they need to succeed.  

Wes Jablonski, Chief Development Officer, Wingstop Restaurants, Inc.
Wes serves as chief franchise relations officer for Wingstop Restaurants, Inc. In this role he oversees the franchisee assistance program and serves as Wingstop’s liaison with franchisees in areas such as renewals, monitoring and analysis of financial performance.

Darrell Johnson, President & CEO, FRANdata
A former banker, Darrell acquired FRANdata in 2001 on behalf of his previous employer, National Cooperative Bank, and then, lead a management buyout of the company in 2004 from the bank. Darrell untangles complex franchise and economic data to provide insight and conclusions so that franchisors can benchmark and improve their performance—most critical at a time when the lending community is watching every franchisor very, very carefully.

Bill Johnson, Senior Vice President, United Capital Business Lending
Bill Johnson is senior vice president of sales and business development for United Capital Business Lending, a national franchise lender serving multi-unit operators in the QSR and fast casual dining space. Bill leads the firm’s national business development efforts with a team of highly experience franchise finance professionals regionally based throughout the U.S.

John Kimball, Senior Vice President, Park Midway Bank
John has been providing creative answers for small businesses for more than 20 years. As the head of the SBA department for a community bank, he launched the SBA operation and oversees the origination, underwriting, processing, and servicing of all SBA loans and sits on the bank’s Credit Committee and senior management team.

Bruce Lammers, CEO, Ridgestone Bank
Bruce is the chairman and CEO for Ridgestone Bank, with branches in Brookfield, Wis., and Schaumburg, Ill.  Bruces’ extensive work in the banking industry focuses on commercial banking, asset management and corporate strategy.

Dave Maney, Business Futurist and Economic Commentator
Dave is founder and chief executive officer of Economaney LLC, a content-driven media company focused on painting the most vivid possible picture of the radically morphing global economy ten years out. Maney is a successful entrepreneur, business educator, and former journalist who previously co-founded Headwaters MB, a Denver-based merchant banking platform provider, and before that, Worldbridge Broadband Services Inc., a telecommunications network services firm.

Dennis Monroe, Chair, Monroe Moxness Berg PA
A pioneer in the retail and franchise finance area, Dennis has developed a broad network of finance contacts and clients, and has overseen hundreds of franchise deals over the last 25 years. He is considered one of the leading “go-to” guys to discuss complex finance transactions.

David Nilssen, Founder, Guidant Financial Group
David is a serial entrepreneur and is a leading expert on small business and franchise finance. His company provides financing opportunities for small business owners, with a special emphasis on the franchise sector.

Ryan Palmer, Shareholder, Monroe Moxness Berg PA
Ryan counsels emerging and established franchisors, licensors, distributors, sales representatives, and manufacturers in the sale and distribution of products and services.

Rocco Perate, Executive Vice President, Specialty Lending, Square 1 Bank
Rocco is executive vice president of Square 1 Bank’s specialty lending division where he leads and coordinates the bank’s initiatives into government guaranteed lending including SBA, USDA and Ex-Im loans nationwide.  

Paul Pickett, Vice President Franchise Development, Wild Birds Unlimited, Inc.
Paul’s career with Wild Bird Unlimited has perfectly combined his love of birds, nature and people. Paul has more than two decades of franchise development experience and also manages all of the site selection/lease negotiation assistance for the WBU system.

Bob Rodi, President, Mt. Pleasant Capital
Bob is the managing member and chief executive of Mt. Pleasant Capital, with 31 years in the specialty finance industry.  Mt. Pleasant Capital recently entered into a venture with a global insurance company to provide funding to the franchise sector, where MPC will originate and underwrite the deals. Bob is widely recognized for his expertise in credit scoring technology.

Mike Rozman, Co-President, BoeFly, LLC
Mike is the co-president and chief strategy officer for BoeFly, overseeing business development, marketing, and external affairs. The company has launched an innovative on-line web site to match up the capital needs of small business owners with the loan needs of community banks.

David Stiles, Senior Vice President, Trinity Capital LLC
David carries 19 years of commercial and investment banking experience including: mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings, securitizations, risk management, portfolio management, turnarounds and restructurings, valuations, warehouse financings, credit evaluation, lending operations, loan servicing and investor relations.

Ken Switzer, Vice President/CFO, Marco’s Pizza
Ken has been with Marco’s Pizza for more than 20 years and has been instrumental in creating innovative financing programs for the company’s franchisees. Ken will talk about how franchisors can provide credit enhancements in order to help a lender’s unwillingness to loan money to franchisees.