Peapack-Gladstone Bank hired Kevin J. Bodnar to head its corporate advisory team. He will co-lead the division with Patrick R. Brocker, current head of structured finance, and Thomas Brower, senior managing director.

The division will focus on evaluating strategic alternatives for clients, including acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures and recapitalizations, assessing debt capacity and appropriateness of debt and equity solutions and evaluating alternatives to improve alignment of family and business objectives.

“Each member of the corporate advisory team has consistently demonstrated success by adding value and delivering strategic insight to clients,” said Eric H. Waser, executive vice president and head of Commercial Banking at Peapack-Gladstone. “Growing our team allows us to leverage an already successful line of business. It gives us the ability to support entrepreneurs and business owners with Bodnar’s merger and acquisition experience, which is a perfect fit with our advice-led strategy.”

Bodnar has more than 30 years’ experience in the industry. He most recently served as managing director at Corporate Fuel Partners, where he oversaw the firm’s broker-dealer subsidiary. Prior to that, Bodnar was a director with Alliance Mezzanine Investors, responsible for executing all phases of mezzanine and equity investments and fund management for the middle market focused SBIC-licensed fund. Before Alliance, he worked at FleetBoston Financial for 15 years in credit and lending and was a founding member of Fleet Securities.