President
Asset Based Lending Consultants
“You’re Don Clarke, the legend,” the attendee said.
Since that day, Clarke has continued to build his impressive legacy in the asset-based lending industry and calling him a legend at this point may be an understatement. With his expertise in all aspects of the ABL business, his dedication to education and his entrepreneurial spirit, Clarke has made a lasting impact on the industry, earning plenty of distinctions along the way, including being named to the Secured Finance Network’s Hall of Fame this year.
Building the Legend
Clarke would go on to work for Bank of New York and then, when he and his wife moved to South Florida in 1978, Heller Financial and Southeast Bank Leasing Company, where he rose to the role of chief credit officer and CFO.
Clarke says he and his wife sent out 400 letters to potential clients over the first six months of business and got silence in return. With cash dwindling, ABLC finally booked its first field exam, and the rest is history, with the company bringing in $1 million in revenue by its third year in business, according to Clarke.
“You’ve seen a growth in the menu,” Clarke says. “It is a global product to lend to middle market and under-capitalized companies. It is here to stay and actually it’s expanding.”
“Field examinations and underwriting are sacrosanct; they’re linked together,” Clarke says. “That’s my favorite part of it, discovering and disclosing risks to the lender so the lender knows how to structure the deals.”
“Where else do you get to learn and be a part of a lending platform that has a global reach and is the lending methodology that works for middle market, under-capitalized companies?” Clarke asks. “There has never been a boring moment.”
Clarke’s status as a legend in the ABL sector is built on more than his work with ABLC. Throughout his career, Clarke has been a champion of the industry and one of its most active and effective teachers. He conducts seminars and teaches classes globally on all manner of topics for multiple organizations, spreading knowledge about field exams, account management, operations, underwriting and more. Clarke, who got his start teaching in 1981 after attending a field examiner seminar in Los Angeles, takes education so seriously because it can expand the horizons of the next generation and build an even better industry.
Clarke extended his teaching reach when he co-published a book with the Commercial Finance Association (now SFNet) in 2005 titled “Asset Based Lending Disciplines,” which still serves as essential reading for anyone getting started in the industry. Clarke, who, as a recipient of distinction in English from the University of Cambridge, has always enjoyed writing, says that a new edition of the book will be released early in 2022.
Be the Thermostat
“I want to be the shoulder that people stand on, that minorities and people of color stand on my shoulder. I want to mentor them as much as I can because there’s a space here,” Clarke says. “This is where you can make a career, earn a good living and you can make an impact.”
“I think the greatness of a man should never be measured by the car he drives, the house he lives in and the money he has in the bank. Greatness should be measured by how many people that he took with him in his ascent to the top,” Clarke says. “I don’t want to be the thermometer that measures the temperature. I want to be the thermostat that sets the temperature.”
