Southern Auto Finance Company, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.- based nonprime lender, has hired Karyn Lentz, a former Exeter Finance Corp. executive, to be its new senior vice president of risk management and credit policy, according to a report published yesterday.
At Exeter, where she held the same title, Lentz was responsible for setting and administering pricing and credit parameters, managing the company’s credit risk, performing loss forecasting, overseeing model validation and ensuring organizational effectiveness, according to the report. She was also played an important role in the design and implementation of a state-of-the-art loan origination system that reduced decision time from an average of 30 minutes to only 10 seconds, which resulted in a double-digit increase in booked loans.
“We’re remarkably fortunate to have Karyn join our team,” George Fussell, founder and chief executive officer of SAFCo told Auto Remarketing. “She comes to us with a degree of experience that is simply unbeatable, with specific expertise in finance, credit, risk management and operational analysis that dovetails exactly with our needs as we grow our organization.”
Exeter also had a recent executive shakeup in October when the company announced that Thomas Anderson would be replacing Mark Floyd as Chief Executive Officer.
“In 2010, I came out of retirement to help build Exeter and lead it through an extraordinary period of growth,” Floyd said in a company release at the time of the announcement. “In just four years, with an incredibly talented team, we have created a leading auto finance organization providing the highest level of service to more than 8,700 dealers and thousands of customers throughout the U.S. It is now the right time for the Company and me personally to turn over the reins to new leadership as we look to the Company’s next phase of growth.”
Lentz herself said that building a strong risk management team was one of her top goals in her new role at SAFCo, listing more tightly controlled operations, better products for clients, a more manageable balance sheet, and greater predictability in cash flow as just a few benefits that risk management makes possible.
“With this new role,” Lentz said. “The company is making a clear statement that it is committed to putting in place all the resources it takes to make these benefits a reality.”