Erin O'Neill joined S.B. Clark Companies in March 2021 with a background in affordable housing underwriting, asset management and financial closings. She has extensive experience in analyzing low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) real estate transactions including financial modeling and risk and sensitivity analysis. S.B. Clark Companies is a national, woman-owned public finance consulting firm located in Denver offering services for LIHTCs, new markets tax credits, bond financing and more. With 20 years’ experience in affordable housing, O'Neill was most recently with Berkadia Affordable/Riverside Capital as vice president of underwriting where she was involved in underwriting LIHTC investments and managing the closing process with developer partners as well as ensuring the needs of Berkadia’s investor partners were met. Prior to that, she was with National Development Council for 14 years working in various roles supporting the national nonprofit’s efforts in community and housing development across the country. O'Neill provides perspective around LIHTC investor sensitivities including negotiating and structuring transactions as well as working with developer partners to successfully manage investments through the closing process.

Russell Ginise is the president of Alliant Strategic Investments and directs the firm’s affordable housing preservation, workforce housing and qualified opportunity zones investment initiatives. Ginise has extensive experience in both affordable and market-rate multifamily housing, having led or directed public and private firms that have collectively invested in, owned or managed more than 100,000 apartment units in more than 40 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. He has held leadership positions in local and national organizations throughout his career and held elected public office in his community for 10 years. Ginise received his bachelor’s degree from UCLA and his Juris Doctorate from the Pepperdine University School of Law. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and its Affordable and Workforce Housing Council.

Colette Dafoe serves as the office managing partner of Nixon Peabody's Washington, D.C., office. She focuses her practice on all aspects of commercial real estate transactions, representing owners, investors and developers in acquisitions, sales, leasing, financing and development of commercial real estate. Much of her work involves drafting and negotiating purchase and sale agreements and complex financing structures as well as the performance of due diligence and other site acquisition services. Dafoe concentrates on deals involving multifamily housing with an emphasis on affordable housing and the senior housing and care industry. She handles transactions ranging from single properties to portfolios involving publicly traded and privately held companies. Dafoe's clients include investors, lenders, purchasers and providers and sellers of low-income housing tax credit properties, multifamily apartments, mixed-use properties, independent and assisted living facilities, nursing homes and continuing care retirement communities. Dafoe's restructuring and workout experience includes workouts of commercial loans, portfolio and securitized loans, and distressed property sales and representation of lenders in debtor-in-possession financing transactions. Dafoe was selected, through a peer-review survey, for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2022 in the field of Real Estate Law. She has been listed in Best Lawyers since 2018. Dafoe received a bachelor’s degree from St. Lawrence University, a M.P.H from Tufts University School of Medicine, and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law. She is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. 

Pamela West leads the real estate impact investment strategy within Nuveen’s Real Asset Group. She is a seasoned real estate professional with 20-plus years of experience and has executed more than $10 billion of transactions in acquisitions, dispositions financing and asset management within the U.S. She currently oversees the sourcing, execution and portfolio management of Nuveen’s impact investing affordable housing platform. Prior to joining the team, West was the regional head of acquisitions and asset management for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region for TH Real Estate, a subsidiary of Nuveen. She managed more than $2.8 billion of class A/B housing assets. She began her career in real estate at CBRE. In addition to her professional activity, West is a board member of the Real Estate Executive Council, Bold Charter Schools and City Parks Foundation. She also serves on the advisory boards for Leonard W. Wood Center for Real Estate Studies, Veritas Impact Partners and Cooper Housing Institute. She is a member of the ULI Affordable Housing Investors Council and the Real Estate Roundtable’s President Council. West graduated with a bachelor's degree in English education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an M.B.A. in real estate and finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Paul Smith is a senior director in the Columbus, Ohio, office of JLL Capital Markets. Smith is primarily responsible for originating and executing financing opportunities for conventional and affordable housing properties nationwide. Smith has been involved in multifamily housing finance for more than 15 years and has closed more than $1 billion in transaction volume across all levels of the capital stack. Smith joined a predecessor to JLL in 2013. Prior to joining JLL, Smith held various positions at Red Capital Group, a leading multifamily capital provider based in Columbus. Smith’s career began in the LIHTC business where he served as lead equity underwriter for Red Capital’s LIHTC syndication business.  

Steve Aichroth is the administrator of the Nevada Housing Division. He previously served as the administrator of the Manufactured Housing Division until the agency was merged with the Nevada Housing Division during the 2017 Legislative Session. After the merger, Aichroth served as the deputy administrator of the newly combined agencies. Prior to serving as the Manufactured Housing Division Administrator, he was the chief of administration at the Nevada Housing Division. Aichroth has also served as a commissioner at the State of Nevada Commission for Common Interest Communities. Before entering public service, he spent the bulk of his career managing and running private sector business in Nevada.

Michael Novogradac is the managing partner of Novogradac, which has been in business since 1989. He specializes in affordable housing, community development, historic preservation and renewable energy. Mr. Novogradac’s focus is in real estate taxation and accounting. He is the author of numerous real estate-related tax and accounting articles and books, including the Novogradac Opportunity Zones Handbook, the New Markets Tax Credit Handbook and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Handbook. A frequent speaker at tax incentive conferences and forums throughout the country, Mr. Novogradac also broadcasts a weekly podcast, Tax Credit Tuesday. As a leading industry expert, he is frequently quoted in national media, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC News, NBC News, National Public Radio and Crain’s New York Business.  Mr. Novogradac is active in advocating for the inclusion of affordable housing, historic preservation, community development and renewable energy incentives in federal and state tax policy, and serves as advisor on industry and governmental affairs for the NMTC Working Group, LIHTC Working Group and the Opportunity Zones Working Group. Mr. Novogradac provides input to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and other federal and state agencies as well as members of Congress, including testimony before the United States House Committee on Ways and Means. Mr. Novogradac also serves on the executive committee of the Housing Advisory Group and the boards of directors of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, the National Housing Conference, the NMTC Coalition and Historic Tax Credit Coalition. In 2016, Mr. Novogradac was inducted into the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame. He also received The Affordable Housing Visionary Award from The NHP Foundation in 2018, in recognition of his contributions to the affordable housing community and in 2020 was honored as one of the top 25 OZ Influencers through Opportunity Zone Magazine. Mr. Novogradac graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He received an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He is licensed in California, Oregon, Maryland and Texas as a certified public accountant. You can follow Mr. Novogradac on twitter @novogradac and on his blog at www.novoco.com/blog or listen to his weekly podcast at www.novoco.com/podcast.

With a more than 20-year career in housing and lending, Amy Case is now the chief financial officer for Foothills Regional Housing. Her agency serves and develops across seven cities, five towns and six unincorporated areas in the Greater Denver metro area. She also serves on the board of Colorado NAHRO as vice president of State Legislative Affairs, Mountain Plains NAHRO, two national NAHRO committees, and previously served, as chair of Housing Colorado, an education and advocacy association focusing solely on supporting the affordable housing industry and its stakeholders on behalf of its more than 300-member organizations.

Cory Bannister has spent nearly a decade financing and developing affordable housing. He is a senior vice president of R4 Capital in our Newport Beach, California, office, responsible for originating and acquiring LIHTC properties for the firm. His finance career began by structuring loans to affordable housing developments with Prudential Mortgage Capital Company, and later, acquiring tax credit properties with R4 Capital. Through his work structuring debt and placing equity, more than 2,000 affordable housing units have been created or preserved. His tenure also includes work for two prominent West Coast affordable housing developers, Wasatch Advantage Group and Community Development Partners. Bannister has direct experience working through all stages of the finance and development life cycle. He has navigated complex environmental and entitlement issues, won multiple 9% awards, and garnered more than $20 million in soft funding. In total, he has developed more than 890 units of affordable housing with total development costs exceeding $200 million. He received a bachelor’s degree in urban studies and an master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering, both from Stanford University where he was a scholarship pitcher on the varsity baseball team.