Regional Bank CRT Forum 2025

James advises banks and the buy-side on a wide range of derivatives transactions in all the major asset classes, repos, securities lending, and structured notes. He also advises on a broad range of regulatory and strategic issues (e.g. benchmark reform and UST treasury clearing) across the derivatives and structured finance markets.

James advises issuers, investors and arrangers on CRT transactions and advised on SCI’s North American Transaction of the Year 2024 and various other North American CRT transactions.

James also advises numerous lenders in the insurance/funding agreement backed financing market.

James also advises clearinghouses on various matters, including the launch of new services and products, both in the US and UK.

Sandro Kraft is the Director, M&A at Valley and is responsible for overseeing all merger & acquisition and strategic partnership and business development initiatives of Valley.

Prior to joining Valley, Sandro was a Vice President in J.P. Morgan’s Financial Institutions Group in New York where he focused on originating and advising clients on M&A and debt & equity capital market transactions as well as other strategic projects for North American and European banks. He started his career in J.P. Morgan’s Financial Institutions Group in London as an Analyst.

Sandro holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of St.Gallen (HSG) where he studied Economics.

Terry Lanson is a Managing Director at Seer Capital Management. He is responsible for the management of Seer’s investments in bank regulatory capital relief transactions, as well as other European investments. Seer has been an active investor in reg cap transactions across asset classes and jurisdictions since 2008. Mr Lanson joined Seer shortly after its inception in 2008 from Citigroup in London, where he spent two years. He spent the previous 9 years at Deutsche Bank in New York and London, where he was part of the team responsible for Deutsche’s market-leading balance sheet securitization/reg cap program. He worked on transactions including Haus, Core, Cast, Craft, Gate, and London Wall for Deutsche, as well as the first Start deal for Standard Chartered. He also structured and executed some of the first securitizations in the European markets for auto loans, trade receivables, and Pan-European corporate bonds. Mr Lanson holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard College.

Chip is an Executive Director within Wells Fargo Securities Structured Products Group overseeing the Structured Solutions effort.  In this role, he focuses primarily on advising and consulting on capital and liquidity strategies using structured technology for banking clients.   He has over 20 years of structured funding experience with 13 years in Ally Financial’s treasury team. This experience included helping recently establish a new unsecured CLN platform, as well as executing on securitizations and loan sales.  Prior to Ally, Chip held roles in Structured Funding at Bank of America overseeing the largest US CRT program prior to Great Recession, as well as a position in the strategic capital and liquidity group in Wachovia’s treasury group.  He has a BS in accounting from Wake Forest University.

Daniel Esposito is a Vice President at RBC Capital Markets in the Financial Institutions DCM & Capital Advisory team. Dan has over 10 years of experience covering financial institutions with a primary focus on domestic banks and U.S. private credit vehicles. His responsibilities include regulatory advice & analysis, generating capital & liquidity solutions for regional bank and private credit issuers including SRTs (analytics, structuring and investor/issuer coverage). Within the financial institutions space, his specialties include structuring capital securities, optimizing rating agency metrics and capital structure optimization. Dan began his financial services career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York within their Markets Group. Dan graduated from Rutgers Business School – New Brunswick with a degree in Finance and Economics.

James advises banks and the buy-side on a wide range of derivatives transactions in all the major asset classes, repos, securities lending, and structured notes. He also advises on a broad range of regulatory and strategic issues (e.g. benchmark reform and UST treasury clearing) across the derivatives and structured finance markets.

James advises issuers, investors and arrangers on CRT transactions and advised on SCI’s North American Transaction of the Year 2024 and various other North American CRT transactions.

James also advises numerous lenders in the insurance/funding agreement backed financing market.

James also advises clearinghouses on various matters, including the launch of new services and products, both in the US and UK.

Mr. Hinkle rejoined EJF in 2024 after previously working at the company from 2008 to 2016.  Prior to rejoining EJF, he founded and served as Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Shoals Capital Management (“Shoals”), an alternative asset management firm that invested across the capital structure in the financial and real estate sectors.   Prior to Shoals, Mr. Hinkle served as the portfolio manager of EJF’s debt opportunities strategies from 2008 to 2016 and was a member of EJF’s Executive Committee.   Mr. Hinkle also served as an Associate Director at Navigant Consulting, where he was responsible for valuing distressed debt and equity investments in emerging economies for large multi-national corporations.   He also worked at FBR in the institutional equity research department as an analyst covering the life insurance sector.  Mr. Hinkle holds a degree in Economics from the College of William & Mary and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Joe is a Co-Leader of the Mortgage and Structured Credit segment at Lockton Re. He has over six years of experience in reinsurance broking, specializing in Mortgage and Structured Credit solutions, and spent the first part of his career in investment management across multiple asset classes. Prior to joining Lockton Re, Joe was a Senior Vice President at Guy Carpenter
on the Mortgage and Structured Credit team, joining the company after
completing his MBA at Cambridge University.

Sandro Kraft is the Director, M&A at Valley and is responsible for overseeing all merger & acquisition and strategic partnership and business development initiatives of Valley.

Prior to joining Valley, Sandro was a Vice President in J.P. Morgan’s Financial Institutions Group in New York where he focused on originating and advising clients on M&A and debt & equity capital market transactions as well as other strategic projects for North American and European banks. He started his career in J.P. Morgan’s Financial Institutions Group in London as an Analyst.

Sandro holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of St.Gallen (HSG) where he studied Economics.

Sean Hannah has been a vital part of the Lockton Re team since 2020. As a credentialed actuary and broker, he has been pivotal in the development of Lockton Re’s analytics platform as well as its deployment to better serve clients and markets. Prior to Lockton Re, Sean was at Willis Re where he led the build out of their global Mortgage and Structured Credit analytics capability.

Terry Lanson is a Managing Director at Seer Capital Management. He is responsible for the management of Seer’s investments in bank regulatory capital relief transactions, as well as other European investments. Seer has been an active investor in reg cap transactions across asset classes and jurisdictions since 2008. Mr Lanson joined Seer shortly after its inception in 2008 from Citigroup in London, where he spent two years. He spent the previous 9 years at Deutsche Bank in New York and London, where he was part of the team responsible for Deutsche’s market-leading balance sheet securitization/reg cap program. He worked on transactions including Haus, Core, Cast, Craft, Gate, and London Wall for Deutsche, as well as the first Start deal for Standard Chartered. He also structured and executed some of the first securitizations in the European markets for auto loans, trade receivables, and Pan-European corporate bonds. Mr Lanson holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard College.