CIVIC HIRES Champion of Simplicity

Redondo Beach, CA, May 16, 2017 - CIVIC Financial Services has hired efficiency expert and creative leader, Merced Cohen, to direct the company’s operations. After spending the last 10 years deconstructing and relentlessly improving the loan process at Skyline Financial Corporation, Ms. Cohen has joined CIVIC as the Director of Operations with a plan to tackle a new frontier: private money lending.

Prior to joining CIVIC, Ms. Cohen served as Executive Vice President of Operations at Skyline Financial Corporation. During her 10-year tenure, she conquered the complexity inherent to lending operations by eliminating redundancies, implementing technology-focused solutions, and effectively measuring the tangible and intangible metrics essential to the company’s operations, which was key to the company’s growth from $40M per month to just under $4B annually. She was nicknamed “the heartbeat” of Skyline for her leadership implementing a daily communication rhythm that connected all 600 employees to the message at the top of the organization and allowed the company to pulse faster across its 47 branches.

CIVIC, a private money lender with just 4 years of business under its belt, is at a perfect point to benefit from Ms. Cohen’s leadership and operations expertise. In addition, she is joining forces with longtime trusted colleague from Skyline, William J. Tessar.

Tessar, CIVIC’s newly-appointed President, said “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Merced for more than a decade, and her creative approach to operations, inspirational leadership style, and relentless pursuit for simplicity makes her a vital part of the business. She has experience on the sales side, which provides a valuable perspective that few operations leaders share. This enhances her ability to consistently cut through the noise of lending operations to arrive at a simpler solution. These things, coupled with her ability to develop talent, make her the best in the industry. I can’t imagine anyone else scaling CIVIC’s operations.”

Since joining CIVIC in March 2017, Ms. Cohen has had a few weeks to reflect on her decision and new environment: “When I first stepped into CIVIC’s office, its immense potential was breathtaking. The combination of the vast resources created by Wedgewood’s vertically-integrated fix and flip business and HMC’s NPL acquisition expertise alongside CIVIC’s access to low-cost capital make it the biggest opportunity I’ve seen in my 30+ years of lending. Beyond that, there’s the people, the amazing people! The unique blend of seasoned industry experts with younger professionals new to the industry helps us approach the business with a fresh perspective. All of this creates a culture and environment to ‘Think Outside the Bank’, develop future leaders, and lay the foundation for CIVIC to disrupt the private equity space.”