Celebrating Women in Credit: A Q&A with Industry Leaders

In this insightful Q&A, we feature three remarkable women credit professionals who have made significant strides in their careers. Betty Hernandez, executive vice president/chief credit officer at SLR Business Credit; Mignon Winston, vice president/underwriting team leader at Great Rock Capital, and Hailee Ledford, vice president of client relations at AmeriFactors, share their experiences, challenges, and successes.

Betty Hernandez, Executive Vice President/Chief Credit Officer, SLR Business Credit

Tell us about your career trajectory.

After graduating from Rutgers University, I started my career in a credit training program in New Jersey at First Fidelity Bank, a mid-sized regional bank. After nine months of classroom training, I was rotated through various departments to support lenders as an underwriter. There I was exposed to many different types of lending facilities and borrowers including non-profits, wholesalers, distributors, real estate and leasing. In July 1990, at the end of the two-year program, I was placed in the bank’s asset-based lending department. This department was headed by Ted Kompa, with Jeff Goldrich, Dan Tortoriello and Mike Coiley as team leaders. My role was account executive, but before I was given accounts to handle, Ted wanted me to get field exam experience. I was sent out with various field examiners under the tutelage of Ira Wolfe, the audit manager. I audited staffing companies as well as manufacturers and distributors prior to becoming an account executive.

In 1995, Ted and Jeff had an opportunity to leave First Fidelity (which was soon to become First Union and now Wells Fargo) to start up an independent finance company called Business Alliance Capital Corp. (BACC). I vividly remember Jeff’s farewell speech, as he had just turned 40 and I was about to have my second child. He discussed turning 40, leaving a stable bank job to start up a new independent finance company with no borrowers day one. I, too, had no idea what the future would hold as everything had been changing so rapidly.

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