Job Description

ABOUT THE COMPANY

We are a fast-growing, independent equipment finance company located in Newport Beach, California. We originate equipment and working capital loans, finance leases, and EFAs for small and mid-size businesses across the country.

We have scaled originations significantly year-over-year and are at the point where we need an operator in the building. The ideal candidate has run credit and funding teams before, knows where the breakdowns happen as volume grows, and can build the systems and team structure to handle what is coming.

THE ROLE

The Head of Operations will have ownership over the full transaction lifecycle from credit approval through funded deal and portfolio management. You will have two direct reports from day one: the VP of Credit and the Funding Manager. The credit team reviews and submits deals to lender partners. The funding team takes approved deals through documentation, stipulation clearing, UCC filing, vendor verification, and wire disbursement. You are accountable for both functions running smoothly, and for making sure they work together instead of against each other.

This is blended role of strategy and details. You will be in the details via reviewing the funding pipeline daily, resolving escalated stips and documentation exceptions, building workflows that reduce rework, and making hiring and process decisions that compound over time. You will also be a key voice at the leadership table as we evaluate new broker programs, asset classes, and technology investments.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

Credit Function Oversight

• Partner with the VP of Credit to ensure the credit team is staffed, trained, and hitting turnaround targets without sacrificing decision quality

• Own the submission and credit approval capacity model: as origination volume grows, you are responsible for making sure underwriting headcount, delegated authority levels, and workflow design keep pace

• Review and sign off on credit policy and underwriting guideline updates; ensure that changes are clearly communicated to the funding and sales teams

• Step in as an escalation point on complex or sensitive credit decisions where a second senior perspective is needed; this is not a day-to-day decisioning role but you need to understand credit well enough to be a credible voice

Funding Team Ownership

• Own the post-approval deal process end to end: documentation generation, stip and condition clearing, vendor invoice verification, certificate of insurance review, UCC-1 filing and lien perfection, booking into the LOS, and vendor wire disbursement

• Manage and develop the Funding Manager and the funding team; establish clear SLAs for each stage of the funding process and hold the team accountable to them

• Reduce the time between credit approval and funded deal by identifying and eliminating friction potions that extend funding timelines

• Ensure every funded transaction is correctly booked into the loan origination and servicing system: asset description, obligor details, payment stream, rate, residual, and any associated fees or insurance

• Oversee UCC-1 preparation and filing for all transactions; maintain a clean lien log; track continuation deadlines and ensure filings are renewed before expiration; manage subordination agreements and lien conflict resolution when prior UCC filings surface on search

Pipeline & Throughput Management

• Maintain daily visibility into the deal pipeline from submitted application through funded: volume by stage, aging, stip status, pending wires, and funding projections for the week and month

• Identify operational bottlenecks in real time and make tactical adjustments to keep deals moving

• Build and publish weekly ops metrics to the leadership team: deals submitted, approved, funded, declined; average time to decision; average time to fund; stip clear rates; and any notable exceptions or operational incidents

• Own month-end close for the operations function: ensure all funded deals are properly booked and reconciled, all wires are confirmed, and the portfolio count and balance match across systems

Process, Technology & Compliance

• Document and continuously improve standard operating procedures for every step of the credit and funding process

• Lead or co-lead evaluations of LOS, CRM, and decisioning technology

• Ensure operations are compliant with warehouse facility lender requirements, including deal-level documentation standards, borrowing base reporting, and any eligibility criteria that affect which funded deals can be pledged

• Identify and mitigate operational risks before they become losses: wire fraud prevention controls, stipulation exception authority limits, dual-control funding verification, and documentation imaging and retention

• Support external audits, regulatory exams, and investor due diligence reviews

Team Building & Leadership

• Build the operations org as the company scales

• Create a culture of speed, accuracy, and accountability

• Serve as the internal translator between credit, funding, sales, and finance

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Required

• 8+ years of experience in equipment finance or equipment leasing operations, with at least 3 years in a management role overseeing a funding team, credit operations team, or both

• Hands-on knowledge of the equipment finance funding process: document generation, stip management, UCC-1 filing and lien searches, COI review, vendor invoice verification, wire disbursement, and LOS booking

• Working familiarity with equipment finance structures such as EFAs, $1 buyout leases, and FMV leases, and the documentation and lien perfection requirements that differ across structures

• Working understanding of working capital loan structures, underwriting requirements, and funding process

• Experience managing against turnaround time SLAs in a broker-channel or vendor-channel origination environment where deal velocity is a competitive differentiator

• Proven ability to build and manage teams

• Bachelor's degree in finance, business, operations, or a related field

Strongly Preferred

• Familiarity with warehouse facility documentation requirements, borrowing base reporting, and what lenders look for in deal-level file audits

• Experience supporting or managing through an ABS securitization process, including pool-level data validation and investor due diligence

• Track record of implementing or improving operations technology

• Experience scaling an operations function from a small team to a larger one during a period of rapid origination growth

WHY THIS ROLE

• You will run the operational core of a fast-growing company with both credit and funding reporting to you, and you will have the authority and budget to build the team and infrastructure you need

• Competitive base salary depending on experience, with an annual bonus tied to operational performance metrics

• Full benefits: medical, dental, and vision coverage

• You will be joining at the perfect inflection point: early enough to shape how the company is built, late enough that there is real revenue, a real team, and a real platform to work with

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