Chris Lehnes

University of Chicago

DePaul University

Senior Vice President / Managing Partner at Sterling Commercial Credit, LLC

New York City Metropolitan Area

Primarily responsible for building out Sterling's national origination platform and establishing strategic partnerships.

STERLING COMMERCIAL CREDIT is a family owned and operated financial service provider specializing in short term Asset Based Lending & Factoring from $100,000 to over $7,000,000. At Sterling, our mission is to engineer creative working capital solutions for growth minded Entrepreneurs, which allows them to follow their dream with an industry leading, transparent commercial lending partner.

Ideal clients for SCC are companies that cannot obtain traditional bank financing, yet have a strong business model and collateral in accounts receivable, inventory and equipment. This alternative financing is appealing to businesses that are fast-growing, starts-ups with strong experienced leaders, mergers and acquisitions, bank exits, bank turn downs, and debtor in possession (DIP) opportunities.  Sterling Commercial Credit is excited to continue funding companies that are committed to keeping The American Dream alive!

SPECIALTIES:
- Borrowing Base Asset Based Lending
- Ledgered Asset Based Lending
- Invoice Factoring (both Notification & Non-Notification)

Sterling Commercial Credit

Senior Vice President / Managing Partner

Powering innovative companies at the first digital commercial bank in the U.S. as Head of Asset Based Lending.

Grasshopper Bank

Head of Asset Based Lending

Commercial Finance to middle-market and small businesses.  Specialized in highly leveraged structured financing.  Joined firm to help integrate acquisition of Factoring platform.  Redesigned Risk Rating Model to bridge across both Factoring and Asset Based Lending products.  Underwrote and managed a portfolio of Asset Based Loans and handled workout/special assets.

North Mill Capital LLC

Senior Vice President

Founded denovo Commercial Finance Subsidiary for WebBank. Handled Chief Credit Officer duties for 3 of the 4 years. Built Risk Rating System covering Factoring, Asset Based Lending and commercial loan financing products to meet regulatory requirements.  Federal and State Banking Regulators consistently gave WCS the highest compliance and Safety & Soundness ratings in the bank.  Initiated two very successful Supply Chain Financing programs.  Conducted due diligence for the Bank on FinTech partnership opportunities. Sold the unit to Midwest based bank group upon my departure.

Working Capital Solutions, Inc. (A WebBank Subsidiary)

President & CEO

Hired to help turnaround acquisition of troubled commercial finance company in Dallas, TX.  Stabilized problem loans, reduced expenses and returned company to profitability.  Initiated new Supply Chain Financing Program (Reverse Factoring) for a Fortune 500 Company.  Sourced and led the acquisition of a Merchant Credit Card Processor and entry into Merchant Cash Advance funding business.  GCS was a client of Credit Support Int'l.  General Management, Corporate Development, Strategic Planning and Merger & Acquisition (M&A) responsibilities.

Greystone Commercial Services LP

President

Guided the firms strategic direction and client development.  Led high level consulting assignments for bank-owned, large corporate & entrepreneurial commercial lenders.  Also called upon for expert witness assignments.

Credit Support International

Built Western Regional Loan Processing Center from the ground up, targeting small business and lower middle-market highly structured loan opportunities.  Corporate development, strategic planning and M&A responsibilities.

GE Capital

Orchestrated turnaround for new investor group yielding $28MM Premium over $2MM Book Equity in just two years.  Firm still profitable today as a bank-owned subsidiary.  Helped to issue first dual-class securitization of Asset Based Loans and Factored Receivables.  Designed firm's first Credit Scoring Model covering both financing products.

Bay View Funding

Started-up Chicago & Toronto Operations Offices, both are still operating profitably today.  Took over as National Sales & Marketing Director for this North American Factoring and ABL company in 1992 and propelled Riviera to become the #1 Factor in North America.  Inherited 30 person sales team.  Reduced to 11 then built back up to 19 and was able to increase year-over-year sales by over 50% at two-thirds the cost.  Closed 660 transactions in my final year there, averaging almost 35 new clients per salesperson.  I was the person in charge of issuing first ever Factoring Securitization through Newman & Associates.

Chris Lehnes ✔