Schmidt: Steve Hopkins is leading a team of originators working with vendors (major manufacturers and distributors) in the technology sector. Mike Marcolina’s job is to find and work with the Value Added Resellers (VARs) or Solution Providers in the technology vertical. Both Steve and Mike work together, but run separate teams. Daniel Pfeiffer works with bank clients. There are major clients within the bank and Daniel’s team is charged with taking our products to our Wells Fargo Bank customers –- thereby expanding the overall product offering.
The fact is -- we’re just scratching the surface of where we need to be in all our products, despite that fact that we do billions of dollars of transactions annually. So we still have a long way to go and exciting and challenging work ahead of us.
On the supplier finance and sales finance sides, we are pursuing a number of industries and we do a great deal of business within each of these sectors. Wells Fargo’s customers are prospects for our products. When we present the benefits of our products and describe the automation behind the platform, customers quickly see how easy the product is to use. Fortunately, we are ahead of the game in terms of the efficiency of our platform, as our technology has been designed and refined over the past ten years. We love to demonstrate how advanced we are in terms of our technology, the ease to deploy our solution and how it solves cash flow problems for companies of all types.
In terms of the Wells Fargo Bank’s commitment to the group -- Wells Fargo Bank is allowing us to invest in people, so our growth potential is unlimited. We see it as a substantial growth opportunity and we are investing in the horsepower ... people with experience in all our functional groups as well as new origination people. I am very pleased in what Wells Fargo Bank is allowing us to do to build out and expand this group.
ABL Advisor: What is the geographic scope of your responsibility?
Schmidt: We are operating all over the world and have teams deployed here at home, in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia.
ABL Advisor: Thinking back to your experiences as co-founder of Castle Pines Capital LLC, how would you describe the major differences between running an entrepreneurial company, to working within a regulated bank environment?
Schmidt: At Castle Pines Capital LLC, we were a private entrepreneurial company where two or three of us made decisions allowing us to deploy credit lines rapidly. When the acquisition occurred, of course the big question on our minds was: What would happen when we moved into a banking environment?
To ensure the transition went smoothly, we made sure the front-end –- the experience with the customers remained the same -- as well as the speed of underwriting approvals and documentation. This has all remained the same from the Castle Pines Capital LLC days.
Being a part of Wells Fargo Bank allows us to also provide products we never had available as an independent finance company –- such as cash management. Today, the bank officers all over the country come out with us on calls to meet with prospects and work to provide our prospects and existing customers with an entire slate of bank products. Of course, behind the scenes we have to do more compliance work as we are now part of a bank.
My personal goal is to finish what we started twelve years ago. We must establish a more significant penetration level, because regardless of how big we are today, we are still small in relation to the massive size of the market potential. I also believe from the bottom of my heart, that the work we do for our customers assists in the success in their own businesses. I want to keep moving forward and with the bank behind us, I am very excited to head this group and keep it growing.