Stacy Allen sees challenges as opportunities for growth. Though it was challenging to leave a large commercial bank (CoreStates, now Wells Fargo) and become a senior credit officer at a small healthcare finance company (Healthcare Business Credit Corporation), Allen had the opportunity to learn quickly on-the-job, as, initially, she was the only person in the credit department and had no prior healthcare lending experience. She also was the only woman on a senior management team that grew the business to more than $900 million in financing commitments and sold it to CIT in 2005.

Allen’s experience at HBCC gave her a strong credit base. In 2007, when she teamed up with colleagues to launch a new healthcare asset-based finance company (originally Gemino Healthcare Finance and now SLR Healthcare ABL), she took on the challenge of building and running the company’s collateral monitoring and treasury management functions. She says that was the biggest challenge of her career, as she only had limited exposure to both areas and had to build both departments from scratch.

Allen took continuing education classes and became a certified treasury professional. She subsequently took on the additional responsibility of overseeing the portfolio management team, which included loan workouts, restructuring, bankruptcies and liquidations. At the beginning of 2023, she transitioned into a new role as head of business development and led the group to one of its best performances in the company’s 17-year history.

Taking advantage of opportunities to change and learn has given Allen a unique depth of knowledge in healthcare ABL and made her career very fulfilling. Allen is hopeful that through her interactions with colleagues, clients, attorneys and other peers, she has been able share as much knowledge as she has gained over the past 25 years. Her future goals remain what they have always been: to continue to learn and challenge herself with new opportunities for personal and professional growth.