Author, “Factoring Operations Manual”, “Transportation Factoring Operations Manual” and “Accounts Receivable Audit Forms”

Debra Wilson Zukonik serves as Chief Credit Officer of BAM Worldwide where she manages the Strategic and Tactical Operations of the company. In her 30 plus year commercial finance career, Debra has held a variety of progressively responsible positions with four different commercial finance companies.

Debra’s extensive range of training and experience in factoring, commercial credit / collections, auditing, and financial management made her well qualified to author FactorHelp’s “Factoring Operations Manual”, written specifically for the factoring industry.

Debra currently serves as a board member of the International Factoring Association, the Commercial Finance Association, the American Factoring Association and is former board member of the Finance Forum. Debra is well known within the industry,as she teaches Credit & Underwriting Seminars, has been a featured speaker at numerous factoring and finance conventions, serves as a Subject Matter Expert for the IFA Account Executive Certification program, and has provided expert testimony in numerous legal actions across the country.

Co-founder, FactorHelp, Inc.
Founder and President, Commercial Finance Consultants

David, along with Debra Wilson Zukonik, founded Factorhelp in 2002. With over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing, and an honors graduate in Psychology from Sam Houston State University, he has earned his reputation as an expert in Factoring, Asset Based Lending and Commercial Finance.

Throughout his career, David has been recognized as a top performer. During his tenure at Management Recruiters International, the largest executive search firm in the world which employed over 5,000 executive recruiters, David excelled and proved to be one of the very best in his profession, winning over 70 International, National and Regional awards.

Additionally, David currently serves as President of Commercial Finance Consultants, which specializes in human capital acquisition in the niche of Factoring and Asset Based Lending. CFC also has been recognized by the Factoring Industry, earning the coveted “Endorsed Vendor Status” with the IFA (International Factoring Association) and named the Strategic Career Center Partner with the Commercial Finance Association, which has never been bestowed on an executive search firm in the history of the CFA. Additionally, David served on the board of The Finance Forum as past board member of the Dallas Chapter of the National Funding Association. David has been a speaker at industry conventions, written numerous articles and conducted webinars for the ABL and Factoring industries.

Much of David’s success can be attributed to his commitment to exceeding the expectations of his clients. By approaching each assignment with the highest levels of professionalism, ethics, dedication and confidentiality, he has established a track record of success in satisfying the needs of his clients while providing both clients and candidates with exceptional opportunities.

In his own words, “My reputation and knowledge of the Factoring and Asset Based Lending industries are the most important things I offer my clients. We work hard and listen to what our clients need and then deliver. I love the industry. My greatest joy is to affect positive change for our clients”.

FactorHelp, Inc.
Attorney

Laurie Martin Montplaisir is an accomplished attorney whose practice is concentrated in the factoring industry.  Laurie has extensive experience in all facets of factoring, including drafting legal documents and negotiating and documenting intercreditor agreements, subordination agreements, participations and workouts.  She frequently handles account debtor issues and third party creditor issues.  Laurie has litigation experience and has filed and litigated complaints against factoring clients, personal guarantors and account debtors.   Serving as outside general counsel to many of her factoring clients, Laurie negotiates credit facilities and investor documents and advises factoring clients on a myriad of legal issues including contract negotiation and drafting, transactional matters, employment matters and general business issues.

Laurie’s business acumen and familiarity with a broad spectrum of legal issues and industries, combined with her pragmatic approach to dealing with complex problems, enables her to act as both legal advocate and thought leader for her clients’ achievement of their business objectives.   Her representative experience includes advising private and publicly traded companies in establishing and maintaining factoring operations, including drafting of all factoring documentation, establishing operations and procedures and compliance with best practices, counseling factoring clients in negotiating and documenting multi-million dollar bank credit facilities, representing a prominent regional bank in negotiating and documenting a credit facility to a factoring customer and advising clients regarding litigation matters related to breach of contract, fraud and the fraudulent transfer of assets.

Laurie completed her undergraduate studies at Purdue University, with honors, majoring in financing with a minor in psychology.   Laurie graduated from Loyola University School of Law, cum laude with honors, where she was the recipient of scholastic scholarships and achievement awards.

Laurie is a preferred attorney with the International Factoring Association and frequent lecturer for the IFA, including conducting webinars, participating as a legal moderator at annual conference legal panels, conducting “Women in Finance” seminars and roundtables and as a moderator for factoring seminars.   Laurie also founded the Midwest Chapter for the IFA.

Laurie is active in her community and a volunteer in her school and church community and for the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services.  She enjoys sailing, scuba diving and skiing.

FactorHelp, Inc.
General Factoring Consultant

As principal of Ullman & Ullman, P.A., Michael Ullman has served as counsel and trusted advisor to over 200 asset-based lending, factoring and forfeiting companies throughout the United States and abroad. He also serves numerous other business clients in a range of industries.

He started Ullman & Ullman, P.A. in 1980. Ullman & Ullman, P.A. specializes in all forms of commercial transactions and litigation, including domestic, international and complex arbitration proceedings, entity formation and drafting of contracts and agreements. Because of his more than 35 years of experience and significant involvement with asset-based lending, Mr. Ullman has extensive familiarity with business operations in a diverse range of industries. Mr. Ullman has served as co-counsel to the International Factoring Association, a position he has held for over 10 years, and lectures frequently at IFA events around the country.

FactorHelp, Inc.
Transportation Factoring Consultant in Sales, Operations, and Management
Contributing Editor and Subject Matter Expert on the Transportation Operations Manual

Tim Valdez is currently Co-Founder of Pavestone Capital LLC. Pavestone provides factoring financing solutions for the transportation, staffing industries as well as for small businesses.

Prior to Pavestone, Tim was Chief Lending Officer for Transportation Alliance Bank and Executive Director of Transfac Capital.  The seven years prior, Tim was at TAB where he held various positions and eventually was the National Sales Manager. It is important to note that TAB was started in 1999, hence, this was really a startup situation to the bank that Tim was the primary architect. He helped to grow it to a bit north of $800 million in outstanding factoring, ABL Lines, and equipment financing.

His first exposure to factoring as an employee in the industry was as a BDO for CFG, one of the oldest factoring companies in the US. Tim’s first touch in factoring was as a client where he started a company called Sports Plus/Alota Designs Inc., Fit Manufacturing Inc.  It was initially a sole proprietor but added two partners to fund the growth.  The company focused on apparel embellishment and cut/ sew garments for several licensed and branded apparel companies. Tim started the company from 1 employee to over 200 and 70,000 square feet of production space.  Tim factored the business with CFG in 1990 until the company became bankable in 1993.  When he sold the business, he consulted with production planning in the apparel business and one of these clients was Tracy Eden with CFG who is their president today.

Tim had always been entrepreneurial and was working full time while getting his education and had found a job selling powerboats in Salt Lake. He was working for an apparel company initially as a salesperson and then as the operations manager. Tim had the ambition to start his own apparel company 1989.

FactorHelp, Inc.
Accounting Factoring Consultant
Author of FactorHelp Accounting Manual

Claudia Montalbano has been working in the factoring industry for over twenty years. She studied at Loyola University Chicago where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and an MBA with concentrations in both Accounting and Human Resources. She left her position at Bibby Financial Services as Financial Controller, overseeing the accounting and finance department for six North American entities, in 2011 to start her own company, Verity Accounting Solutions. Verity has been serving Factoring businesses and their clients for the past seven years, assisting them in everything from general ledger set up/clean up, budgeting, generating monthly and year end financial statements, bank audits, and general consulting.  Please Contact Factorhelp to engage Claudia.