Over one hundred years of collective experience in private debt, private equity and operating in lower-middle market space, coupled with deep institutional and origination relationships.
Deep expertise investing in LMI areas and women and minority owned-businesses (More than 80% of U.S. investments in the precedent fund were either minority owned businesses or located in an LMI eligible zone).
Aurelio has 20 years of principal investment experience in the debt markets and has lending expertise across various debt classes. Most recently, his experience has been focused on lending for small and medium entities across the U.S.
Prior to SBCC, Mr. Almonte was the Chief Credit Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer at Savile Finance Group and was responsible for reviewing and approving all loan submissions. He provided feedback on all credit submissions and amendments and assisted in negotiating terms for all transactions. He was responsible for the ongoing development of credit policies, financial models, and risk rating tools.
Previously, Mr. Almonte was the Senior Credit Officer with Maple’s Commercial Finance Group where he led the credit process from initial pricing through the ultimate repayment of transactions.
Mr. Almonte was involved in the due diligence, proposal structuring, negotiation, documentation, hedging and funding of transactions. Maple Securities is where Messrs. Almonte and Marino began their professional relationship in 2004.
Prior to joining Maple’s Commercial Finance Group, Mr. Almonte worked for PB Capital a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Postbank AG (Formerly BHF Bank) where he worked in the Portfolio Management and the Logistics Finance Groups. His responsibilities included evaluation and diligence of investment opportunities.
He graduated from Saint John's University with a B.S. in Finance.
Mr. Garcia has worked for twenty five years in the investment industry, and has worked for more than twenty years in private equity, international investment banking, global financial markets and portfolio management at major firms in New York. He has extensive experience in investment analysis and research, and has been recognized by leading polls as one of the top analysts on Wall Street. He is a regular commentator on international financial markets and investment strategy.
Prior to SBCC he co-founded UniWorld Capital L.P., a $60 million Private Equity fund that invests in lower middle market companies in the United States. Prior to UniWorld, Mr. Garcia founded Discovery, a boutique investment bank, focusing on the Hispanic Market. Discovery held responsibilities across the spectrum of products within that asset class, including research, investment banking and asset management.
He created the first Hispanic index and covered public and private Hispanic companies in the U.S. Prior to that, he was a managing partner and founder of Suala Capital Fund. This private equity company specialized in buyouts in Spain led by Ana Botin, CEO of Santander of Spain.
Mr. Garcia’s career at Suala followed his work for Santander Global Advisors (SGA), Santander’s asset management arm. There, he was responsible for portfolio management and equity research in emerging markets, particularly focused on those of Latin America. Previously, he served as managing director, head of emerging markets equity research and chief Latin American strategist at Santander's Investment Banking division. He was responsible for building Santander’s equity research business, which achieved Institutional Investor’s top three quality research ranking – the first time ever that Santander was ranked -- in just one year.
Prior to Santander, Mr. Garcia served as director of equity research for Latin America at Salomon Brothers. He was personally ranked “runner-up” by Institutional Investor in the telecommunications sector. Mr. Garcia also was recognized as one of the top four analysts by Bloomberg’s Analyst Scorecard, in which he competed with analysts from all countries and sectors. Prior to joining Salomon, he worked as an analyst at Smith Barney, first in the healthcare sector and then covering Latin America.
Mr. Garcia holds a Master in Finance (MSF) from Boston College and a B.S. in Civil engineering from the Andes University in Bogota, Colombia.
Monika is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Small Business Community Capital (SBCC), a private equity and private debt impact fund that invests in small businesses with an emphasis in women and minority founders as well as investments in low and moderate income communities.
She is also the President and CEO of Altura Capital, an investment management firm that specializes in data analytics on emerging and impact managers.
Throughout her career, Monika and her companies have received multiple awards and recognitions for their work in building financial capacity in underserved markets and communities.
Monika sits on the Board of Stanford Latino Business Action Network (where she teaches a webinar on capital), the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where she chairs the Capital Committee, and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation through its Latinos in Finance Trustee and Financial Education Initiative. In addition, she is a capital advisor of the Billion Dollar Roundtable and a participant of the Aspen Latinos in Society initiative.
She enjoys finding ways to help her community, women, and underserved markets build knowledge, bridges, and ecosystems to reach their true economic potential.
Monika holds an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York and a J.D. from the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia.
Pablo has over 20 years of principal investment experience in private debt. He has invested more than $500 million in debt securities in over 200 small and medium sized companies.
Prior to SBCC, Mr. Marino was the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Savile where his main responsibilities included deal sourcing, designing and implementing an investment process to maximize investment returns. In addition, he performed due diligence, analyzed collateral credit risk, and negotiated loans transactions.
He was the Co-founder of the Maple Commercial Finance Group ("MCFG") where he led the Latin America trade finance department sourcing transactions for the division. Maple Securities is where Messrs. Almonte and Marino began their professional relationship in 2004.
He was a member of the Latin America origination team at New York City-based International Investor Group LLC ("IIG") for approximately 4 years.
Mr. Marino headed the Emerging Markets Equities business at Bank of America and was responsible for asset allocation and risk management. His business unit consistently outperformed the in-house investment performance guidelines.
Graduated from Drexel University with a B.S. in Business.
Crandall Deery
Partner
Mr. Deery has 20 years of experience in financial services with a focus on providing private capital to the middle market since 2005. He has closed on over 50 transactions totaling $6.0B in capital including ABL and cash flow revolvers, first lien, second lien and unitranche term loans, unsecured notes and preferred and common equity. His responsibilities have ranged from origination to portfolio management and exit with a focusing on structuring and execution.
Prior to SBCC, Mr. Deery served as a Senior Vice President at Full Circle Capital, a publicly listed BDC, where he was a member of the investment committee and ran structuring and execution. In this capacity, Mr. Deery managed an investment team seeking to provide capital to the lower middle market in the form of both debt and equity.
From 2006 to 2011 Mr. Deery served as a Vice President of Jefferies Finance LLC, a joint venture between Jefferies & Co. and Babson Capital formed to
provide non-investment grade senior and subordinated debt to the traditional and upper middle market. In this role, he led a structuring and execution team in addition to managing a portfolio of outstanding loan commitments. Prior to Jefferies Finance, Mr. Deery served as an Associate within the Global Sponsor Finance group at GE Capital where he focused on providing financing to private equity firms for leveraged middle market transactions.
From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Deery worked in equity research at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. where he was a member of the Institutional Investor-ranked Chemicals team and helped initiate coverage on the Capital Goods sector. Mr Deery began his career in 1997 as an Associate within the Financial Advisory Services group at PricewaterhouseCoopersLLP. Education — B.A., Economics, Vanderbilt University, 1997; M.B.A., Finance and Business Law, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, 2005.
Crandall Deery
Partner
Aurelio has 20 years of principal investment experience in the debt markets and has lending expertise across various debt classes. Most recently, his experience has been focused on lending for small and medium entities across the U.S.
Prior to SBCC, Mr. Almonte was the Chief Credit Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer at Savile Finance Group and was responsible for reviewing and approving all loan submissions. He provided feedback on all credit submissions and amendments and assisted in negotiating terms for all transactions. He was responsible for the ongoing development of credit policies, financial models, and risk rating tools.
Previously, Mr. Almonte was the Senior Credit Officer with Maple’s Commercial Finance Group where he led the credit process from initial pricing through the ultimate repayment of transactions.
Mr. Almonte was involved in the due diligence, proposal structuring, negotiation, documentation, hedging and funding of transactions. Maple Securities is where Messrs. Almonte and Marino began their professional relationship in 2004.
Prior to joining Maple’s Commercial Finance Group, Mr. Almonte worked for PB Capital a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Postbank AG (Formerly BHF Bank) where he worked in the Portfolio Management and the Logistics Finance Groups. His responsibilities included evaluation and diligence of investment opportunities.
He graduated from Saint John's University with a B.S. in Finance.
Mr. Garcia has worked for twenty five years in the investment industry, and has worked for more than twenty years in private equity, international investment banking, global financial markets and portfolio management at major firms in New York. He has extensive experience in investment analysis and research, and has been recognized by leading polls as one of the top analysts on Wall Street. He is a regular commentator on international financial markets and investment strategy.
Prior to SBCC he co-founded UniWorld Capital L.P., a $60 million Private Equity fund that invests in lower middle market companies in the United States. Prior to UniWorld, Mr. Garcia founded Discovery, a boutique investment bank, focusing on the Hispanic Market. Discovery held responsibilities across the spectrum of products within that asset class, including research, investment banking and asset management.
He created the first Hispanic index and covered public and private Hispanic companies in the U.S. Prior to that, he was a managing partner and founder of Suala Capital Fund. This private equity company specialized in buyouts in Spain led by Ana Botin, CEO of Santander of Spain.
Mr. Garcia’s career at Suala followed his work for Santander Global Advisors (SGA), Santander’s asset management arm. There, he was responsible for portfolio management and equity research in emerging markets, particularly focused on those of Latin America. Previously, he served as managing director, head of emerging markets equity research and chief Latin American strategist at Santander's Investment Banking division. He was responsible for building Santander’s equity research business, which achieved Institutional Investor’s top three quality research ranking – the first time ever that Santander was ranked -- in just one year.
Prior to Santander, Mr. Garcia served as director of equity research for Latin America at Salomon Brothers. He was personally ranked “runner-up” by Institutional Investor in the telecommunications sector. Mr. Garcia also was recognized as one of the top four analysts by Bloomberg’s Analyst Scorecard, in which he competed with analysts from all countries and sectors. Prior to joining Salomon, he worked as an analyst at Smith Barney, first in the healthcare sector and then covering Latin America.
Mr. Garcia holds a Master in Finance (MSF) from Boston College and a B.S. in Civil engineering from the Andes University in Bogota, Colombia.
Monika is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Small Business Community Capital (SBCC), a private equity and private debt impact fund that invests in small businesses with an emphasis in women and minority founders as well as investments in low and moderate income communities.
She is also the President and CEO of Altura Capital, an investment management firm that specializes in data analytics on emerging and impact managers.
Throughout her career, Monika and her companies have received multiple awards and recognitions for their work in building financial capacity in underserved markets and communities.
Monika sits on the Board of Stanford Latino Business Action Network (where she teaches a webinar on capital), the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where she chairs the Capital Committee, and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation through its Latinos in Finance Trustee and Financial Education Initiative. In addition, she is a capital advisor of the Billion Dollar Roundtable and a participant of the Aspen Latinos in Society initiative.
She enjoys finding ways to help her community, women, and underserved markets build knowledge, bridges, and ecosystems to reach their true economic potential.
Monika holds an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York and a J.D. from the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia.
Pablo has over 20 years of principal investment experience in private debt. He has invested more than $500 million in debt securities in over 200 small and medium sized companies.
Prior to SBCC, Mr. Marino was the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Savile where his main responsibilities included deal sourcing, designing and implementing an investment process to maximize investment returns. In addition, he performed due diligence, analyzed collateral credit risk, and negotiated loans transactions.
He was the Co-founder of the Maple Commercial Finance Group ("MCFG") where he led the Latin America trade finance department sourcing transactions for the division. Maple Securities is where Messrs. Almonte and Marino began their professional relationship in 2004.
He was a member of the Latin America origination team at New York City-based International Investor Group LLC ("IIG") for approximately 4 years.
Mr. Marino headed the Emerging Markets Equities business at Bank of America and was responsible for asset allocation and risk management. His business unit consistently outperformed the in-house investment performance guidelines.
Graduated from Drexel University with a B.S. in Business.
Crandall Deery
Mr. Deery has 20 years of experience in financial services with a focus on providing private capital to the middle market since 2005. He has closed on over 50 transactions totaling $6.0B in capital including ABL and cash flow revolvers, first lien, second lien and unitranche term loans, unsecured notes and preferred and common equity. His responsibilities have ranged from origination to portfolio management and exit with a focusing on structuring and execution.
Prior to SBCC, Mr. Deery served as a Senior Vice President at Full Circle Capital, a publicly listed BDC, where he was a member of the investment committee and ran structuring and execution. In this capacity, Mr. Deery managed an investment team seeking to provide capital to the lower middle market in the form of both debt and equity.
From 2006 to 2011 Mr. Deery served as a Vice President of Jefferies Finance LLC, a joint venture between Jefferies & Co. and Babson Capital formed to
provide non-investment grade senior and subordinated debt to the traditional and upper middle market. In this role, he led a structuring and execution team in addition to managing a portfolio of outstanding loan commitments. Prior to Jefferies Finance, Mr. Deery served as an Associate within the Global Sponsor Finance group at GE Capital where he focused on providing financing to private equity firms for leveraged middle market transactions.
From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Deery worked in equity research at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. where he was a member of the Institutional Investor-ranked Chemicals team and helped initiate coverage on the Capital Goods sector. Mr Deery began his career in 1997 as an Associate within the Financial Advisory Services group at PricewaterhouseCoopersLLP. Education — B.A., Economics, Vanderbilt University, 1997; M.B.A., Finance and Business Law, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, 2005.
David has 16 years of experience in public accounting specializing in financial services and consumer business. He is very well versed not only in US GAAP but also international accounting standards and practices.
Mr. Chu is the CFO for SBCC and he is responsible for preparing and approving all compliance documentation required by the SBA and all of the Fund's financial statements.
Mr. Chu is the Chief Financial Officer of Savile Finance Group. He oversees all financial aspects of the Firms operations. He will act as the CFO for SBCC. Prior to joining Savile, David held various positions at a number of major public accounting firms.
Most recently, Mr. Chu worked at Marcum, LLP where he supervised an audit team in the Alternative Investment Group practice of that firm, where he
oversaw audits for a variety of Alternative Investment Strategies of Hedge Funds, Fund of Funds and Private Equity Funds.
Prior to Marcum, LLP, Mr. Chu held a variety of supervisory positions at Deloitte & Touche, LLP, KPMG, LLP, and McGladrey & Pullen, LLP where he was responsible for audit and the review of records for U.S. and foreign publicly traded companies, with a particular focus on translating foreign accounting standards to US GAAP.
He graduated from Queens College of the City University of New York with B.A. in Economics.
Mr. Chu is fluent in Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin and Taiwanese).
Lesslie Alvarez Burhans joined the SBCC team as controller in June 2016 and brought with her enthusiasm for the industry and over 10 years of finance and accounting experience in various aspects of the business.
Lesslie has a BA from Baruch College and a MBA from the University of Connecticut with a concentration in Finance.
Lesslie began her career working at UBS in Wealth Management, where she found her love for Finance and analytics.
She later went on to work at a successful bio-tech firm which was in the process of being acquired by a prestigious Japanese company, being part of the due diligence process and working alongside the PE fund she found herself eager to explore private equity.
In 2012 Lesslie joined a seasoned PE fund as Controller with their main investors being major multilateral development banks.
SBCC has an outstanding Advisory Board that will help the fund augment transaction deal flow, aid in the due diligence process, and provide operational support.
The Advisory Board expands the Principals’ recruiting network for portfolio company talent. The Principals have longstanding relationships with each of the Advisory Board members.
Chief Procurement Officer
Johnson & Johnson
Principal at Beta Consulting, LLC
Ex-VP Global Procurement
Anheuser-Bush InBev
President ADF Companies
Chairman & CEO
The Pinnacle Group
As Chief Procurement Officer-Medical Devices and Supplier Diversity leader, Ruben is responsible for enabling value creation, innovation, risk mitigation and supplier diversity across a $15 Billion spend base at Johnson & Johnson.
Throughout his 25 year career, he has rotated 13 times across eight different affiliates spanning consumer, pharmaceutical and medical device healthcare sectors. Key customers supported include Walmart, Publix, CVS, Rite Aid, AHOLD, Target, Costco, DelHaize, SuperValu and Kroger.
Ruben graduated from Fuqua’s Executive MBA program in 1994 and Texas A&M University in1986 with a degree in Industrial Engineering. He also has a Masters in Manufacturing from the Kettering Institute in Michigan.
Ruben is a past recipient of multiple supplier diversity awards by the Long Island Hispanic Chamber, National Minority Supplier Development and Women’s Business Enterprise groups.
Mr. Rodriguez has over 40 years of industry experience including most recently as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Denny’s Inc. where he oversaw the training, operating support and company and franchise operations worldwide.
Mr. Rodriguez also served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Pick Up Stix Inc., where he was responsible for all aspects of the brand providing the strategic direction, operational leadership and long term development plans. Prior to that he served as the President of Dunkin’ Donuts, President of Gloria Jean’s Gourmet Coffee, Vice President of Operations for Mrs. Field’s Famous Brands, Regional Vice President for McDonald’s Corporation and Zone Vice President for Pepsico’s Taco Bell.
Mr. Rodriguez just joined the ranks as one of the 2012 Corporate Elite as a member of the 25 Dynamic Leaders honored by Hispanic Business. He has served on numerous non-profit boards including, Ronald McDonald’s House Charities, NAACP of San Diego, LULAC Corporate Advisory Board, National Education Council for Literacy and is considered an expert in the food-service business.
Mr. Rodriguez received his MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and his Bachelor of Science from Redlands University.
Paulo has a deep knowledge in areas of Procurement, Supply Chain, Risk Management, Working Capital and Project Management.
For the past 16 years Paulo worked for Anheuser-Busch InBev, where he was the VP Global Procurement (New York office, USA) Responsible for global procurement with a $20 billion pend base.
He was instrumental in developing a competitive supplier base related to raw materials, packaging, transportation, energy and marketing/advertising. He negotiated global agreements and supported the regions in negotiating local agreements.
He also worked 5 years for the Coca-Cola company where he was the procurement director.
He holds 2 undergraduate degrees: a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1978) and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Pontificie Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1984). He also holds a MBA from Syracuse University (1989).
Don has an extensive background as owner and operator of fast-food companies. He has been instrumental in becoming one of the largest franchise operators of the country.
Don is the Founder and CEO of ADF Companies in Fairfield, N.J., The company is the largest minority-owned franchise operator in the country. It manages Taco Bells , KFCs and Panera’s in and around the metropolitan area.
In 1999, the company purchased 80 Pizza Hut chains around New York from Tricon Global Restaurants. They followed that up in 2006 by spending $115 million to buy 165 Pizza Huts, making them the second largest Pizza Hut-franchise operator in the country.
In all, they now own nearly 500 franchises in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. In New York alone, they run 20 fast-food chains.
Nina Vaca is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Pinnacle Group, which includes several companies founded by Vaca, including its flagship, Pinnacle Technical Resources, Inc., an award-winning information technology services provider to the Fortune 500 founded in 1996, and Provade, Inc., a global provider of vendor management software that Pinnacle acquired in 2011.
Under Vaca’s leadership, Pinnacle has become one of the largest firms in its industry, with several thousand consultants across the United States and Canada and more than $650 million in annual revenues. Provade provides services in over 60 countries and manages more than $2 billion of transactions annually. Pinnacle is also an investor in My Plates (www.myplates.com), the sole provider of specialty license plates in the state of Texas, which leverages its proprietary software to contribute millions of dollars to the state general fund each year.
In addition to her corporate leadership, Vaca is strongly committed to philanthropic efforts and is a passionate advocate for issues impacting women and entrepreneurship. Through the USHCC Foundation, Vaca founded At the Table, an initiative supporting women entrepreneurs and business professionals, propelling them to higher levels of success and influence. Vaca was named Chairman of the USHCC Foundation in June 2014.
In April 2014, Vaca was selected by the White House as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship, and traveled to Ghana with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker to share her entrepreneurial story and to help develop the next generation of global entrepreneurs. She has represented the U.S. in numerous transatlantic leadership forums, including through the German Marshall Memorial Fellow program and as a member of the British-American Project.
Additionally, Vaca remains active with Peace Through Business, an international mentorship program operated by the Institute for the Economic Power of Women.
Our team’s combined experience with being involved in helping small and diverse businesses grow is unique in the marketplace. Our strength lies in the power of collaboration. Today, we lead an effort to deploy financial, human and strategic resources to create value for our investors and the entrepreneurs we support. In doing so, we feel we are humbly but meaningfully contributing to our society.