Angela Lucas is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Sterling Compliance, LLC, an independent compliance and risk management consulting firm based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prior to launching Sterling Compliance, Angela was an examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, specializing in consumer compliance and commercial credit. Several years and examinations later, Angela expanded her skill set within the Investment Advisory Monitoring and Testing Group at Federated Investors, Inc., focusing on compliance testing and advisory services as a critical link between trading floor portfolio managers and the compliance function. With a strong knowledge of regulatory compliance, risk management and investment advisory services, Angela has established her reputation as a leading resource with the community bank consulting industry. After several years of dedicated, client-oriented consulting service, Angela partnered with a long-time colleague to form Sterling to further the vision they shared for bringing a balanced perspective to their clients for practical approaches to regulatory compliance with battle-tested, effective results.  

Bart Hall has work with financial institutions in different roles throughout his career.  In 1994 he established an internal audit department for the Independent Bankers Bank (IBB) of Florida.  While working at IBB he created a risk-based audit program and bank wide risk assessment program which was approved by the regulatory examiners (FRB).  Bart spent 20 years as the Chief Auditor and Senior Vice President of the IBB of Florida including 12 years managing the Banker’s Bank audit and consulting firm (IBB Outsourcing).  In addition to the Bankers’ Bank he also managed the correspondent audit division of a large regional Bank for 8 years.  With almost 3 decades of audit and compliance experience working with community banks, Bart gained a wealth of knowledge related to regulatory and operational issues that impact financial institutions.  He received a BS in Finance from Auburn University.  He obtained various bank professional certifications including Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Bank Auditor (CBA), Certified Financial Services Auditor (CFSA) and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE).  

Chris delivers more than eighteen years of audit experience serving financial institutions during which he has served a variety of public and nonpublic community banking and financial institution clients as both an external and internal auditor. He serves as one of the firm’s dedicated resources to community banks and has served a number of community banks as a loan reviewer and compliance auditor. His financial institution clients have ranged from de novo community banks to public multistate bank holding companies. Chris has led several significant internal control projects including Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) internal control assessments. 

Chris has led a financial institution update at a correspondent banking seminar for the past four years.  He regularly hosts banking roundtables and co-led the community bank training at the firm’s 2016 and 2015 continuing education weeks. Chris regularly attends numerous continuing education classes for community banking including the AICPA National Conference on Banks and Savings Institutions. 

Howard is the founder of Echo Partners and has over 30 years of financial risk management experience, primarily serving the banking industry. Prior to starting Echo Partners, he spent 15 years as Senior Vice President at a large regional bank, and had financial leadership roles in one of the largest municipalities in the Southeast, as well as Fortune 500 corporate treasury experience.  Howard has extensive experience advising clients on deposit management, hedging and financial matters, risk management, asset liability management, performance improvement and strategic planning.

 

Education

B.S. Economics Dual majors in Finance and Economics

·         The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

M.S. Finance Dual majors in Finance and Economics

·         The University of Memphis

A lifelong resident of the Carolinas, grew up in Clemson, South Carolina, graduated with honors from Clemson University with a BS in Financial Management and has spent most of the past 38 years serving financial institutions in the Carolinas in various Internal Audit, Credit Quality Review, and Compliance capacities, including running his own bank compliance consulting firm for the past 18 years. James has served in these roles in banks ranging in asset size from $ 250 million to $ 35 billion and has headed up the Internal Audit, Credit Quality Review and Compliance Departments for a couple of billion dollar Carolinas financial institutions. James is a Certified Fraud Examiner, a graduate of the BAI School as an Audit Management major, and the North Carolina Banker’s Association Regulatory Compliance School. 

Jason Asbury has nearly 20 years of experience working in the IT industry. He maintains a unique skillset providing consulting services and managing projects for clients in multiple industries including: healthcare, legal, manufacturing, banking, insurance, government contracting, and education. He is a respected subject matter expert in the areas of IT security and compliance. Before becoming an operations executive in the IT Managed Services Provider industry, Jason began his career as a government contractor employed by Science Applications International Corporation. He then served as a CIO in healthcare management. In 2012, Jason joined Warren Averett. As President of Warren Averett Technology Group, he is responsible for the day-to-day management of the company and its overall direction with regard to strategic growth and planning.

Justin Smith leads business development and client support at TRUPOINT Partners to ensure that the compliance and data analytics needs of our clients are being met. 

Over the past decade, Justin has worked one-on-one with more than 1,000 banks, credit unions, mortgage companies and auto finance organizations to implement and maintain compliance solutions for: OFAC, CIP, compliance training, Reg CC, AML, CRA and Fair Lending.  

Today, he specializes in Fair Lending and CRA regulatory consulting and SaaS software for risk assessments, comparative analysis, regression modeling and geospatial / dot density analysis. 

By interpreting his client’s unique organizational structures and identifying compliance risk, Justin implements data analysis and risk assessments, explain the results and provide easy-to-follow risk mitigation strategies. This unique blend of technology and consulting combined with his compliance expertise enables his clients to better understand and manage CRA and Fair Lending risk.

Mr. Proctor is CEO & Executive Director of Cadre Strategic Risk Management, LLC.  During his 40 plus year professional banking and consulting career, Ken has served as an internal consultant with a major regional bank, held responsible management positions in the auditing departments of two southeastern regional commercial banks, and worked as a public accountant.  He created and managed the Risk Management Practice areas for Brintech, Inc. and Sheshunoff Management Services.  Both firms achieved significant year-over-year increases in sales and revenue during his tenure.  He also served as a senior consultant with two international risk management-consulting firms, WBK, Ltd. and Risk Concepts, Ltd. 

Ken’s broad financial institution management consulting experience includes:

·         Performing risk assessment studies at over 600 financial institutions in the U.S., Latin America and Southeast Asia on behalf of financial institutions, and domestic and international insurance brokers or insurance underwriters at AIG, Chubb, Lloyd’s of London, Munich Re and others;

·         Preparing assessments of risk and controls to meet Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance requirements at banks ranging in asset size from $1 to $65 billion;

·         Preparing information technology and information security risk assessments for financial institutions;

·         Completing multi-client risk assessments for: 1) all broker/dealer members of the Bolsa de Bogota (Colombian Stock Exchange) and 2) all issuers of Mastercard, including banks, thrifts, co-ops and others for Mastercard Colombia;

·         Managing compliance with and resolution of regulatory enforcement actions, including Consent Decrees, Written Agreements and Memorandums of Understanding for 24 U.S. financial institutions;

·         Completing BSA/Anti-Money Laundering risk and compliance assessments, BSA/AML audits and forensic audits (i.e., “lookbacks”) for banks in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

·         Performing profitability and operational process improvement reviews for commercial banks and thrifts; 

·         Assessing Board and management processes and organizational structures;

·         Developing strategic business and technology plans for financial institutions;

·         Completing reviews of credit quality and preparing credit diversification, loan risk mitigation and workout plans;

·         Completing financial institution acquisition reviews, valuing loans and other assets;

·         Managing teams to select and implement banking core processing and other technology systems;

·         Conducting fraud investigations for financial institutions and non-profit organizations; and

·         Designing, implementing and testing business continuity plans.

Ken is a frequent speaker for financial institution industry conferences and seminars, including those sponsored by the American Bankers Association, Bank Administration Institute, Financial Managers Society, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, FDIC, and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions.  In addition, he has delivered workshops and presentations for numerous State and Community Banking Associations, including Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Washington, Wyoming, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arkansas and Louisiana, for technology vendors, including FISERV and FIS and international banking associations, including the Federation of Latin American Banks (FELABAN), the Central Bank of Paraguay and ASOBANCARIA, the Banking Association of Colombia and Bureau International Informacion y Negocios.  Since 2001 and 2013, he has served as an instructor on risk management on the faculty of the Louisiana State University Graduate School of Banking and Southwest Graduate School of Banking programs, respectively.  He also served as an instructor on risk management and other topics for the LSU sponsored Professional Masters of Banking program and on retail banking and lending topics for BAI and the BAI Graduate School of Retail Banking.

Ken has authored articles on risk management for various industry publications and state banking associations including the Banking Exchange, ABA Banking Journal, Bank Marketing and others.  He is co-author of a Technology Planning Guide for Banks, published by the American Bankers Association; and was a contributor to the Bank Internal Audit Manual, published by Alex Information Services.

Ken holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and a Certified Bank Auditor. 

Lisa began her banking career in 1991 at a multi-bank holding company, spending the first decade in credit risk review.  Moving to a community bank as Vice President and Director of Credit Administration, she managed a team of credit analysts, loan operations and collections. In 2005, she also took on the role of Compliance Officer. She was promoted to Senior Vice President, Director of Operations in 2009. 

In early 2012, Lisa entered the consulting arena, and has since written customized credit policy manuals and compliance policies, developed comprehensive compliance risk management programs, performed loan review services and compliance reviews, facilitated strategic planning sessions and conducted various webinars and training sessions for banks and state banking organizations across the nation. In 2015 Lisa partnered with a long-time friend and colleague to form Sterling Compliance, LLC, furthering the vision they shared for bringing a balanced perspective to clients for practical approaches to regulatory compliance with battle-tested, effective results.

Shelly Nicholl is the Managing Director for our Compliance and Consulting Services team. Shelly joined The Norman Group in April 2017 when her firm was acquired. Approaching her 30th year in the banking industry, Shelly brings a broad range of skills to our clients. In addition to her general knowledge of audit and compliance she is a specialist in Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, Bank Secrecy Act, Information Technology, Audit, Training, and Consulting. Shelly has served as an executive officer for a variety of financial institutions and has led the compliance practice at a large regional audit and consulting firm. In addition to compliance and audit, Shelly has extensive knowledge of bank and credit union operations and IT related functions gained through her many years of experience in the industry. Shelly is a graduate of the Robert Perry School of Banking, Compliance, and Audit programs. She is also a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM), Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), and is currently pursuing the CAMS - Auditor Certification.

Starr Largin has over 28 years of banking experience in all areas including senior management, auditing, operations, lending, etc.  In 2010 Starr left banking and began working in sales and product management for a technology company providing software and services to financial institutions across the United States. 
   
In 2017, she co-founded Springhouse Digital, LLC.  With her years of experience and passion for the banking industry, she knew there was a need for high-quality and affordable software solutions and services.  Springhouse Digital, LLC is that solution. 

Starr studied finance at Jefferson State and the University of Alabama.  Actively involved in her local community, Starr was Chairperson for the Relay for Life - Shelby County Chapter and served as Ambassador for the Shelby County Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Hines is president and co-Founder of ThreatAdvice, an enterprise cybersecurity education platform. Mr. Hines has founded a number of startups, as well as the angel investment firm Emergent Holdings. Prior to his involvement in ThreatAdvice, Mr. Hines had 21 years’ experience in the mortgage and banking industries which included the founding of a mortgage brokerage firm which he built into a large provider and sold to a financial institution where he subsequently became a senior vice president. Earlier in his career Steve was a CPA with several years of experience in public accounting. Mr. Hines graduated with a degree in Accounting from Harding University. 

Tom is a banking professional with over 20 years of experience delivering SAAS and application software to financial institutions. He has helped over 700 clients solve analytical problems and improve reporting accuracy using financial technology. Tom’s philosophy is simple:  he wants to help you be as confident as possible understanding and explaining your complex analytical results to the board and examiners.

Tom is a product manager at FIMAC Solutions. He is involved in all aspects of delivery, including customer experience design, relationship management, and as the subject matter expert during the sales and evaluation period.

He spent over 9 years as Vice President Business Development for Plansmith Corporation. His roles included driving consultative sales and marketing strategy as well as providing advisory services on interest rate risk to the client base. 

Prior to Plansmith, Tom held the position of Area Vice President with Open Solutions, Inc where he was responsible for financial and managerial accounting product sales to new and existing Open Solutions clients. Tom also held a variety of positions with Financial Technology, Inc. (an Open Solutions acquisition) including Director of Product Management during which he had strategic and development oversight of the profitability and Asset/Liability Management software systems. 

As an industry professional, Tom directed the risk, liquidity analysis and lending functions for a large wholesale funding and services organization. He began his career in the areas of commercial and retail lending, portfolio analysis and profitability management.

Tom regularly has led seminars for a number of trade organizations including Financial Managers Society, BAI and AMIfs. He’s been a frequent guest speaker at user group meeting and trade conferences.