ECDI Leadership
Meet our Board of Directors
*Denotes Executive Committee Member
Trudy Bartley
Trudy’s community development expertise is an important contribution to ECDI’s strategy for increasing loan volume in our low income target population. As AVP of Local Government & Community Affairs for The Ohio State University, Bartley advocates for community development in distressed Columbus neighborhoods, including the near East Side, where she grew up. As a leader for African American women, Bartley advocates for women to get involved in government and politics. She has directed departments and managed programs in the state and local government, banking and non-profit sectors.
Paul Bloomfield
Paul is a recognized leader in the Ohio commercial real estate business. He has worked for Kohr Royer Griffith Inc. for over two decades, and, in this time, he has been involved in all aspects of real estate acquisition, development, consulting, management, disposition, and leasing. Paul has served on numerous boards over the years, including the National Church Residences, The Mirolo Charitable Foundation, and First City Bank, and brings considerable experience and expertise to ECDI’s Board of Directors. He received his B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College.
Jeffrey Buller*
Jeffrey joined Charter in 2017 as Vice President, Metrics & Reporting and is responsible for working with the Senior Executive Vice President’s corporate business units on budgeting, business planning and financial operating projects. For the 14 years prior to joining Charter, Jeffrey worked at Spectrum Group Management, a New York City-based hedge fund investing in the distressed debt, bonds and structured loans of financial, communications, transportation and energy companies. He was Managing Director and Senior Analyst responsible for identifying investments, as well as all aspects of due diligence and investment execution. Jeffrey began his Wall Street career as an investment banking analyst at Salomon Brothers. He holds a BS in Accounting from Binghamton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Darren Cherry*
As Area President of FocusCFO, Darren provides CFO support to 500+ SMEs in the Midwest. Darren has fifteen years of experience as a senior business leader and growth architect, helping catapult companies to the next level of profitability and performance. He joined the ECDI board in order to support underserved entrepreneurs, offering his talent and considerable experience in business growth strategies. Darren received his BS in Accounting from Purdue University and his MBA from The Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business.
Margaret Ference
Maggie is Senior Vice President and Business Banking Credit, SBA, and Operations Director for Huntington National Bank, a $100 billion-dollar regional bank based out of Columbus, Ohio. With a background in financial underwriting, commercial closing and due diligence, and SBA Program Eligibility, Maggie has built a career specializing in business lending and is very active as a small business advocate in the communities that Huntington serves. Maggie works closely with private and public segment leaders nationwide to communicate Huntington’s mission for small business. She is the business representative on the bank’s ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) Board, focusing on Huntington’s impact on our customers, colleagues, and community. Maggie earned her BSBA degree from Ohio Dominican University and is a graduate of the CBA Executive School of Banking at Furman University, SC.
Steven Fireman, President and General Counsel*
With more than 25 years of management and legal services experiences, Steve provides programmatic and legal oversight for ECDI. As part of ECDI’s three-phase strategic plan, Steve is currently working with new leadership to begin making Community Advantage (CA) loans. This will support ECDI’s objective of growing loan volume through 2022. CA loans will also support ECDI in its strategic goal to increase its portfolio of loans within low-to-medium-income communities and minority populations. Steve ensures that all of ECDI’s programs continue to meet the needs of its underserved target market.
Nick Henderson*
Nick is Managing Partner and CEO for Applied Biomolecular Technologies. Prior to his current role, Nick was the founder and President of Signature Medical Direct, which he sold to an industry leader in 2010. He has extensive entrepreneurial experience having started and grown 7 businesses and one foreign (GmbH) operation. His passion is helping entrepreneurs successfully launch and scale new ventures. Nick received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from The Pennsylvania State University and his MBA from the University of Dayton.
John Hrusovsky, II
John is a senior executive with 32 years of proven business, nonprofit and higher education experience in providing leadership, developing relationships, and organizing and implementing organizational, business process and information technology change. John has helped organizations become best in class through increased service delivery, application of business and industry best practices, improved customer satisfaction, and effective utilization of resources.
Inna Kinney, Founder and Chief Executive Officer*
As a leader in the CDFI industry, Inna maintains a local and national network of partners, enabling ECDI to continually better its products and services to meet target market needs – and fulfill its strategic goal of increasing loan volume to meet the needs of its underserved clients. With more than 20 years of experience in economic and community development, Inna’s organizational responsibilities center on supporting ECDI’s strategic direction and planning, fundraising, fiscal oversight, and education of policy makers.
Pete Mattingly
Pete serves as Managing Director at J.P. Morgan Chase. He is a results-oriented general manager, with a track record of building teams, delivering complex end-to-end initiatives, and connecting people and processes.
Moniqua Spencer, Board Chair*
As chair of ECDI Women’s Business Center of Central Ohio Advisory Board and ECDI Board Chair, Moniqua helps strengthen the WBC’s strategy to serve nascent female entrepreneurs, with a focus on business plan development and lending readiness. As a woman and a minority herself, Moniqua’s expertise strengthens ECDI’s ability to reach minority populations that most need our services – particularly women and African Americans – helping the organization achieve its community coordination strategy of promoting equitable access to capital and entrepreneur training. Moniqua is Vice President of Business Banking at US Bank, focused on the lending, depository, and cash management needs for small businesses.
Stefanie Steward-Young
As Senior Vice President and Director, Community & Economic Development at Fifth Third Bank, Stefanie’s efforts have been critical in helping ECDI receive funding that the organization uses to assist clients residing in distressed neighborhoods, including minority entrepreneurs. Her leadership helps ECDI’s community coordination strategy by promoting equitable access to capital and development services through neighborhood initiatives. Stefanie is one of the lead Fifth Third CRA officers for Columbus and Cincinnati, and has spent the past 12 years delivering critical products and services to distressed communities.
Retta Tegegne
Retta assists ECDI with its goals of increasing loan volume to immigrants, minorities, entrepreneurs in economically distressed neighborhoods, through his first-hand insight on best practices for reaching OTPs in need of entrepreneurial support. As an Ethiopian immigrant himself, Tegegne opened an Individual Development Account (IDA) through ECDI in 2005, launching his own Columbus contracting business, Bezalel Construction. Today, he is ECDI’s field construction advisor for the Capital for Construction program, helping local minority construction contractors withstand payment delays from General Contractors (GCs), with the goal of improving their prospects for market sustainability.
Alicia Townsend
With more than 30 years of leadership and management experience, Alicia is Vice President and Community Development Manager at US Bank. Townsend is an accomplished CRA officer with an emphasis on the Cincinnati market. She collaborates with Cincinnati Market Lead and Relationship Manager, Manny Addo. As an African American herself, Townsend is passionate about assisting ECDI in meeting its strategic goal in our minority target market.
Adam Wezey
Adam is on ECDI’s loan committee, advancing ECDI’s goal of increasing loan volume by ensuring sound loans that clients are able to repay, generating income for the organization. He has 17 years of experience in commercial credit and lending, with significant knowledge of government guaranteed loan programs. He is currently VP/Lead Underwriter at United Midwest Savings Bank. Wezey helps deploy grant and loan funds statewide and assists ECDI with its goal to increase loans among our TM borrowers through his emphasis on projects that provide LITP with healthy food, health care, small business, education and affordable housing.
Reggie Thomas, Board Member Emeritus
With over 25 years of experience at Huntington National Bank, Reggie is a proven team leader with a track record in leading and managing Community Development and CRA activities. As Vice President and Community Development Manager, Reggie has been a representative of the Central Ohio market for community and economic development activities and initiatives. Known for his relationships with the community, Reggie has maintained relationships with neighborhood groups, community agencies, not-for-profits, schools and government officials and entities.