Strengthening the Community Reinvestment Act to Advance Financial Inclusion and Equity

Oscar Perry Abello is Next City’s senior economics correspondent. He previously served as Next City’s editor from 2018 to 2019 and was a Next City Equitable Cities Fellow from 2015 to 2016. Since 2011, Abello has covered community development finance, community banking, impact investing, economic development, housing, and more for media outlets such as Shelterforce, B Magazine, Impact Alpha, and Fast Company.

Horacio Mendez is president and CEO of the Woodstock Institute, a nationally recognized nonprofit research and policy organization focusing on the areas of economic justice, fair lending, wealth creation, and financial systems reform. Mendez was most recently the managing director of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the Americas at MUFG Union Bank, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the bank’s outreach, government affairs, and environmental sustainability strategy.

Mendez was also chief sustainability officer for Rabobank NA, where he oversaw the institutions’ CSR and community reinvestment programs, with an emphasis on food, agriculture, and rural economic development; a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute, where he published research on the scale and sustainability of nonprofit financial service providers; the director of community development at Silicon Valley Bank; and senior investment specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where he assisted in rewriting the implementing regulation for the Community Reinvestment Act. He worked on the equity options floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, ran the fixed income desk for Continental Savings of America, and was a financial industry specialist for Dow Jones/Telerate. Mendez has degrees in economics from San Jose State University and Santa Clara University.

King is the president for Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives Micro Finance Group (CNIMFG), a non-for-profit, community development financial institution (CDFI) that works to provide lending capital up to $100,000 and business development support to small and underserved businesses throughout the metropolitan Chicago area. Since joining CNIMFG in 2014, King has played an integral role helping more than 150 neighborhood businesses gain access to over $3 million in capital to grow or keep their doors open, which has created hundreds of jobs and scores of new community amenities within Chicago's under-resourced neighborhoods.

King has also been responsible for CNIMFG’s role working to help reduce recidivism through the creation of Pathway to Enterprise for Returning Citizens (PERC), the innovative privately funded entrepreneurship training program for the formerly incarcerated. In conjunction with several agencies and organizations, CNIMFG provides loans for qualified individuals upon their successful completion of the multiphase training program designed to help launch their own business.

Under King's leadership, CNIMFG has become one of the leading small business lending organizations in the Midwest for its unparalleled support for growing small businesses, creating jobs and other economic opportunities that are essential to the well-being of the Chicago region and improving the quality of life for many people.

King, a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago with a major in finance, has nearly 20 years of experience in small business lending, credit underwriting, and portfolio managing. King’s career in lending included her work as a credit analyst, a commercial loan officer, and business banking officer at various community and national banks, including Pullman Bank, U.S. Bank, and Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan Association. During this time, she observed the capital challenges and barriers that many small and emerging businesses were faced with and decided that more was needed to empower and equip them with the tools necessary for business growth. This observation has fueled King’s passion for this industry.

Ellen Seidman is a nonresident fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. She is a member of the boards of the Financial Health Network, Maine Initiatives, and Friends of the Strand Theatre.

From 2012 to 2016, Seidman served on the inaugural Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. From 2012 to 2014, she was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where she edited Investing in What Works for America’s Communities; What Counts: Harnessing Data for America’s Communities; and What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Future of Families, Communities and the Nation. She was the 2013–14 New York University Stern–Citi Leadership and Ethics Distinguished Fellow.

From 2002 to 2010, Seidman held various positions at ShoreBank Corporation, and from 1997 to 2001, she directed the Office of Thrift Supervision. She also sat on the board of directors for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and chaired the board of directors for NeighborWorks America. Seidman was senior counsel to the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, was special assistant to the President for economic policy, and held senior positions at Fannie Mae and the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Seidman received an AB from Radcliffe College, an MBA from George Washington University, and a JD from Georgetown University.

Robert Tucker joined the Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF) in June 2015 as the chief operating officer and executive vice president of programs. He leads internal operations and provides strategic leadership to ensure CCLF executes its business plan and fulfills its mission to provide flexible, affordable, and responsible financing and technical assistance for community stabilization and development efforts and initiatives that benefit low- to moderate-income neighborhoods. Prior to joining CCLF, Tucker was the corporate general counsel and chief risk officer for Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS), where he oversaw all legal operations and developed strategies for managing and minimizing risk. Before his tenure at NHS, he was a partner at the law firm Chapman and Cutler LLP, where he represented numerous lending institutions, corporations, and not-for-profit organizations while serving as the law firm’s pro bono chair. Tucker has also been a freelance writer of restaurant reviews and chef profiles for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Pioneer Press.

Tucker has extensive experience in credit analysis working with a wide variety of loan products and structuring complex financial and lending transactions, including matters involving bonds, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, New Markets Tax Credits, and tax increment financing.

Tucker serves on the Cook County Economic Development Advisory Committee and is the chair of the board of directors for Neighborhood Lending Services. He was also a village trustee on the Village Board of Oak Park, Illinois, from 2011 to 2019. Turner has a JD from the University of Wisconsin Law School–Madison and a BA in political science and philosophy from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.