Leadership

Meet Our Team

Carlos Salas

Carlos Salas

Chairman of the Board

Carlos P. Salas is an experienced financial services CEO and private equity manager who most recently led national securities clearing firm COR Clearing LLC through a multi-year growth plan culminating in its sale to Axos Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AX).

Previously, Mr. Salas managed a New York-based private equity fund and was an investment banker with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Credit Suisse First Boston.

Mr. Salas is a member of the State Bar of California and practiced law with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York. He has served on the boards of directors of several public and private companies. Mr. Salas is a graduate of The University of Chicago (J.D.) and New York University (B.A.).

Rev. Everett Bell

Rev. Everett Bell

Chairman of the Advisory Board

Rev. Everett Bell, Jr. is the Founder and Executive Director at Impact Southern California CDC, an organization that engages entrepreneurs and businesses to expand capacity to create employment opportunities that change lives and transform communities. He has been championing the causes of underserved populations for over 15 years.

As the National Organizer for PICO National Network, a faith-based organization with federations in 17 states, he is committed to organizing and creating a voice for the people of those marginalized communities.

Rev. Bell, an associate minister at Christ Our Redeemer African American Methodist Episcopal Church, promotes agendas important to African American and Latino communities by lending a faith-based response to policies of mass incarceration and gun violence. He is particularly interested in changing the legislative landscape around the issue of trauma and youth violence.

Mario DeTomasi

Mario DeTomasi

Chief Executive Officer

Mario De Tomasi has over a decade of mortgage banking experience. He has founded companies in mortgage lending property appraisal management, insurance brokerage and property leasing. Prior to entering the mortgage industry, Mr. De Tomasi held executive positions at Clear Channel Communications, General Electric Capital and BWC Mortgage Services.

Mr. De Tomasi has sat on or currently sits on the board of several companies and non-profit organizations. Mario De Tomasi is a graduate of St. Mary’s College of California and when not working loves to be outdoors playing golf and spending time with family and friends.

Thedora Nickel

Thedora Nickel

Executive Director

Thedora Nickel has over 28 years of banking experience leading large scale domestic and international operations as well as client focused service teams. She most recently served as the Chief Admin Officer for Banc of California responsible for the strategic direction and management of enterprise, operational and administrative divisions including Deposit Operations, Loan Servicing, Treasury Management Services, Client Services, HR, Marketing and Operational Excellence.

Nickel previously served in various leadership roles at Bank of America. In a career spanning more than 25 years, she served as SVP, Group Operations Exec where she directed and managed national research, resolution and reconcilement functions in support of the bank’s 5,200 bank centers, capture sites and cash vaults. Nickel is Six Sigma Green Belt Champion, Lean and Process Excellence certified. Nickel mentors MBA students at the University of California, Irvine and is a board member for The Whole Child in Whittier, California.

Pastor Jack Miranda

Pastor Jack Miranda

Community Board Advisor

Jesse Rubel ”Jack” Miranda III, is the current Program Director of the Jesse Miranda Center for Hispanic Leadership located in Los Angeles, CA. He is the founding pastor of Living Faith Church in La Mirada, and holds a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Studies from Azusa Pacific University. He is married for 40 years to Eileen, with 7 children and 7 grandchildren.

Pastor Miranda serves on the boards of two faith-based organizations that capture the breadth of the exponential growth of the Hispanic Evangelical community in the nation; as an executive with the Southern Pacific District 345 member churches, and the general board of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference/NHCLC, representing over 40,000 churches. He is a founding member of the National Diversity Coalition, as well as on the advisory board of the Royal Business Bank. As a community engager, he has sat on many boards some of which include the La Mirada Chamber of Commerce, Straight Talk Counseling and the school superintendent’s cabinet.

Regina Grant Peterson

Regina Grant Peterson

Community Board Advisor

Regina Grant Peterson has been the Executive Director at Advantage CDC for the past 35 years. Located in southern California, Advantage CDC is a not-for-profit corporation licensed and certified by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to provide low-cost, long-term SBA loans to assist eligible small businesses in California. Regina has been recognized many times in the community including by the Black Chamber of Commerce of Orange County for her help and support of small businesses in the community.
Angie Miranda

Angie Miranda

Chief Risk Officer

Angie Miranda is a career bank regulator with over 11 years’ experience regulating national and thrift institutions. Most recently, she was a National Bank Examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) where she served as Examiner-in-Charge of large, complex, community banks, and participated in large and midsize bank examinations. Her specialty is asset quality and has vast knowledge of retail lending and commercial credit expertise. While at the OCC she served as a credit instructor and Training Team Leader teaching new pre-commissioned examiners. She began her regulator career at the Office of Thrift Supervision and is commissioned as both a National Bank Examiner and Federal Thrift Regulator. Miranda is a Southern California native and earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California with a concentration in Corporate Finance.
Alex Anderson

Alex Anderson

Community Board Advisor

Mr. Anderson has combined advanced studies in business, wall street experience and his community values to deploy several economic empowerment platforms over the past two decades.

Mr. Anderson recently co-founded AAEE, a non-profit vehicle providing innovative solution to long standing social ills which would benefit from business development solutions. Earlier, he joined NuCapital Access Group, an innovative firm that provided venture funding, growth capital and acquisition financing to promising companies owned and operated by minorities and women utilizing CRA funds. He also co-founded the Black Economic Council (BEC), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the self-sufficiency and economic empowerment of African-American communities.

He has served as financial advisor, and consultant to the City of Oakland, startups and small- to middle-market companies. His experience includes client transactions and tenure with highly reputable firms such as Deloitte & Touche, Hambrecht & Quist, Prudential, Kaiser Hospital and IBM.

Kari Hallowell

Kari Hallowell

Chief Financial Officer

Bio coming soon.
Beatrice Stotzer

Beatrice Stotzer

Community Board Advisor

Beatrice Stotzer is CEO and Co-founder of NEWCapital, a real estate development firm in Los Angeles. She is a nationally recognized business leader and family advocate who has devoted her life to creating economic and business solutions for poor families. Her extensive business and economic development work in the Los Angeles region has been invaluable to setting the vision for several organizations as well as helping to establish long-lasting economic and business opportunities for which she has received national and local recognition. Ms. Stotzer currently serves on several Boards and is a founding Board member of several organizations such as Inner City Arts, HOPE, Women’s Law Center and New Economics for Women (NEW) through which she leveraged an initial $97,000 United Way grant into a successful $260 million in investment for NEW. She previously served as Chair of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles and served on President Bill Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development.
Rev. Charles Dorsey

Rev. Charles Dorsey

Community Board Advisor

Rev. Dr. Charles Dorsey is the associate minister of Christ Our Redeemer (COR). He is a passionate committed force of creative inspiration facilitating leadership development and helping create thriving organizations by highlighting organizational character, instituting safe learning environments, leveraging internal competencies, and discovering external opportunities. He also serves as Adjunct Professor at the University of La Verne, teaching students through the School of Religious and Ecumenical Studies. He previously served as the Executive Director of the Community Development Corporation, planning and coordinating a training platform to shift the thinking, planning, and programing of Faith-based leaders throughout the US, and promoting organizational growth, internal culture change expansion, external reputation-building, and improving collective performance.
Richard Ramos

Richard Ramos

Community Board Advisor

Richard R. Ramos is the President and Founder of the Latino Coalition for Community Leadership, a national nonprofit intermediary that helps strengthen and expand the capacity of nonprofits serving high-risk Latino youth and families. He’s a recognized national leader in the field of Latino youth violence-prevention. Ramos understands the challenges of his community including barrio youth gangs, drugs and violence.

Early in his career he served as a correctional officer in state and federal prisons; a Juvenile Hall instructor and at-risk junior high and high school counselor; a co-founding direct or of a gang intervention/prevention community coalition; a director of a Latino youth and family teen center; and a founding director of the Interfaith Initiative of Santa Barbara County, which led the effort and changed the political opposition to affordable housing projects.

Since 2004, author and speaker Ramos has led the Latino Coalition to work in over 20 cities in eight states awarding over $28 million in grants to over 100 community and faith-based organizations. He has received numerous accolades and awards including recognition by the White House Administration, The United States Congress, and The California State Assembly.

Jim Sheriffs

Jim Sheriffs

Managing Director

Jim has over 22 years of mortgage banking experience in Capital Markets and Secondary Marketing. Prior to running Capital Markets for Commerce, Jim held the same role at Banc of California, where he inherited a group and turned them into a functionally organized team that met or exceeded revenue targets consistently over a four year period. Prior to Banc of California, Jim was with OneWest Bank and IndyMac Bank, where he oversaw the interest rate risk management and disposition of multi-billion dollar mortgage pipelines. Jim is originally from Wyoming and earned a B.S in Business Administration. When not working, he enjoys being outdoors and spending time with his family.
Theresa Martinez

Theresa Martinez

Community Board Advisor

Theresa Martinez is the CEO and President of Community Connections, LLC, overseeing grassroots community outreach projects, government & public relations, event planning and fundraising, marketing and social media for community outreach projects. Prior to that, she served as the CEO of the Los Angeles Latino Chamber of Commerce where she managed the membership-driven organization by raising sponsorship dollars to implement programs and workshops to help business owners grow their businesses, advocating on behalf of the 200,000 business owners in the greater Los Angeles area, and raising funds for the programs she managed.
Janet Hargraves

Janet Hargraves

Chief Information Officer

Ms. Janet Hargreaves is a high-performance Information Technology (IT) executive leader with 18 years of professional experience building and directing dynamic information technology teams and solutions across the banking, mortgage, marketing, and financial service industries. Most recently, she was Senior Vice President of Information Systems at the Banc of California where she was responsible for leading the Information Systems division that included: Business Intelligence, Enterprise Data Warehouse, Application/Web Development, and IT Quality Control. Ms. Hargreaves is adept at delivering information technology/system solutions that provide excellent results and improve operational effectiveness and efficiency, while managing compliance and mitigating corporate risks.
Deatria Gates

Deatria Gates

Community Board Advisor

Founder and Senior Pastor at the House of Reconciliation Church International, a faith-based organization located in South Los Angeles, CA which is founded upon inclusion and equality for ALL. Bishop Gates serves underserved and under-represented individuals primarily the African-American LGBTQIA community including low-and-moderate income individuals as well as African-Americans and Latino/Hispanics.
Martice Mills

Martice Mills

Corporate Strategy

Mr. Mills serves as Head of Corporate Strategy for Commerce Home Mortgage. He focusing on leveraging Commerce’s core capabilities to expand Commerce’s reach to new markets and increase capital and product offerings. He has 15 years of commercial lending experience including 12-years of experience operating Community Development Financial Institutions in various senior management capacities. He most recently was a Director within Banc of California’s Institutional Banking Division and Corporate Strategy Group. Included in his role, he oversaw the Community Investment responsibilities of the bank’s public welfare investments. Mr. Mills serves as a Director for Skid Row Housing Trust. He attended the University of California, Irvine for undergraduate studies.
Gary Dunn

Gary Dunn

Community Board Advisor

Retired Community Development banking executive with 28 years of Regulatory Community Reinvestment Act Outstanding ratings. Currently Chairman of the board for Clearinghouse CDFI, Small Business Finance Development Corporation of Orange County and Mary Erickson Community Housing. Advisory Board member for The Capital Corps Mortgage Company. All four organizations serve LMI and minority communities throughout California and beyond.
Rhonda Brent

Rhonda Brent

Community Board Advisor

Chief Executive Officer of “I AM”, a community based non-profit organization that supports low to moderate income individuals with various programs such as life skills, financial education, and transitional home placement.