Industry veteran Matt Grimes joined Encina Business Credit as senior managing director, West Region leader, while Dave Braff came on board as managing director to lead business development efforts primarily in Northern California. The company also concurrently promoted Tron Allen to senior managing director, Central Region leader.
Encina made these key personnel moves to help build on the growth it experienced in 2018.
Grimes will be based in Los Angeles and report to Chief Commercial Officer Rob McMahon. He will be responsible for scaling the company’s business development efforts west of Texas and hiring a senior business development executive in Los Angeles with responsibility for Southern California.
Braff will be based in San Francisco and report to Grimes, while Allen will remain in Houston and report to McMahon. Allen will also be responsible for overseeing the company’s existing business development executives in Chicago, Detroit and Tulsa, while building out the Central Region. He is expected to add a senior business development executive located in either Dallas or Houston to his team later this quarter.
Grimes brings with him more than 25 years of experience in both asset-based and enterprise value lending. He most recently served as the West Region manager for Ares Commercial Finance and previously held senior business development roles at First Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Tennenbaum Capital Partners and Congress Financial. He also spent a few years as a restructuring advisor at CRG Partners.
Braff has approximately 25 years of relevant experience working at both bank and non-bank ABL platforms. He previously served as principal, Business Development at Ares and has held business development roles at First Capital, Sovereign Bank, GE Capital and Union Bank, among other institutions.
Allen joined Encina as senior managing director in connection with the company’s launch in March 2016. He has over 25 years of experience in lending and investment banking. Before Encina, Allen provided strategic advice to clients on capital structure alternatives as an investment banker at both BKD Corporate Finance and Deloitte Corporate Finance. Prior to that, he held a variety of business development and operating roles at GE Capital and JP Morgan Chase.
