M&T Bank Names Head of Affordable Housing Lending
Lopa Kolluri has been appointed head of affordable housing lending at M&T Bank. In this role, she is responsible for the development, oversight, and day-to-day management of the affordable housing vertical within M&T’s commercial bank. She is based in New York City.
Kolluri will execute M&T’s affordable housing business strategy and establish operational processes and governance structures to ensure first-rate customer service to its affordable housing clients. In addition, she will work to strengthen M&T’s existing affordable housing relationships while establishing new regional and national customers.
She will also closely engage with divisions of M&T’s Community Bank and M&T Realty Capital Corp.’s affordable housing platform. Previously, Kolluri was a senior vice president within M&T’s Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Innovation Office, where she led strategy for the bank’s CRE transformation initiatives.
She has more than 25 years of affordable housing and community development experience. Before joining M&T, she was with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where she served as the head of the Federal Housing Administration, overseeing $1.2 trillion in insured mortgages and leading 2,800 employees. She also oversaw HUD’s Office of Housing, which includes the offices of manufactured housing, multifamily housing, and housing counseling.
HDC MidAtlantic Adds to Leadership Team
Kimberly Krauter has joined HDC MidAtlantic as senior vice president of real estate development.
Krauter will provide strategic and operational leadership to the real estate development department and ensure coordination of resources, communication, and implementation of department priorities and initiatives in alignment with the organization’s strategic vision and mission. As part of executive leadership, she will be integral to maintaining relationships with external stakeholders and partners to advance real estate growth across the organization.
Her most recent leadership roles include director of development in Pennsylvania for The Walters Group, an affordable housing developer, and president of Advanced Living Communities, a nonprofit affordable housing organization with a focus on elderly and disabled residents, among others.
Headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, HDC MidAtlantic serves 5,000 residents in 72 communities located in urban, suburban, and rural areas across Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
Property Management Veteran Joins Vesta
Allyssa Romeo has been named vice president, property operations, at Vesta, a leading affordable housing developer, owner, and manager.
With more than 16 years of property management experience, she will lead the collections and financial analytics teams, overseeing and supporting various parts of Vesta's expanding portfolio. Romeo will focus on leading the teams to maximize operational and financial performance through data-driven decision making, while prioritizing both the employee and customer experience.
Prior to joining Vesta, she spent over 16 years at WinnCompanies’ Military Housing Services, supporting a number of functions and departments within her tenure. Most recently, she was director of market analysis and pricing strategy, creating structure to maximize revenue for the 40,000-unit military housing portfolio.
Vesta owns and/or operates 52 affordable housing communities, with over 7,900 apartment homes in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, and the District of Columbia.
Ciminelli Joins CREA Acquisitions Team
David Ciminelli has been appointed senior vice president, originator, at CREA, a leading low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) syndicator.
He will lead originations in CREA’s Southeast territory and contribute to the expansion of affordable housing development through industry partnerships and financing solutions.
Ciminelli has 12 years of LIHTC industry experience. He started his career at a large national syndicator, gaining expertise in asset management, investment analysis, and originations. Most recently, he led originations at another tax credit syndicator, where he originated over $600 million in tax credit equity and developed expertise with state qualified allocation plans and state municipal-level financing programs.
CREA has raised over $11 billion in equity contributing to the formation of over 83,000 homes within 906 affordable communities across the country.
CEDAC Announces Key Appointment
Roberta Rubin has been named director of housing development and preservation at the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp. (CEDAC).
She will manage the project financing, technical assistance, and policy work that CEDAC provides in order to develop and preserve affordable housing in Massachusetts. In her role, Rubin will serve as a member of CEDAC’s senior management team and lead CEDAC’s early-stage project financing and technical assistance programs. She will also provide direct technical assistance on complex housing preservation issues to nonprofit developers, resident organizations, and public agencies.
Rubin joins the organization after serving as chief counsel at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities since 2015.
CEDAC is a public-private community development financial institution that provides project financing and technical expertise for community-based and other nonprofit organizations engaged in community development in Massachusetts.
Advantage Capital Adds to State LIHTC Team
Advantage Capital has announced the expansion of its state LIHTC business line with the addition of industry veteran Natalie Moretz.
Moretz, senior vice president, will work across the capital markets function and be primarily responsible for originating investor tax credit equity for the firm’s state LIHTC funds. She will collaborate with an established team to help developers finance their new construction, rehabilitation, and mixed-use developments—building upon Advantage Capital’s more than 30-year history of impact investing, including expertise in structuring and closing complex transactions. Prior to joining Advantage Capital, Moretz held progressively senior roles at Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, AllianceBernstein, and Citigroup Global Markets.
Advantage Capital has syndicated more than $2.4 billion in state tax credits—and more than $2.3 billion in federal credits—and is active for state LIHTCs in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Strategic Housing Finance Corporation of Travis County Names Leader
Dianna Grey has been appointed executive director of the Strategic Housing Finance Corporation of Travis County (SHFC), an Austin, Texas–based nonprofit that partners with private developers to boost access to affordable housing.
Grey takes over the position permanently after serving as interim executive director since January.
Her extensive affordable housing experience includes serving as the homeless strategy officer for the city of Austin. Before that, she held roles as director of the Texas program for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, program director for the Enterprise Community Loan Fund, and executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services of Austin.
Over the past six months, SHFC has established fully independent operations, transitioning from a long-standing relationship with the Housing Authority of Travis County. SHFC has initiated a comprehensive review of its portfolio, which consists of 3,700 completed units plus nearly 2,000 units under construction.
