Speakers

Aisha Benson is president and CEO of Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), a nonprofit lender, consultant, and advocate that has worked for more than 40 years to strengthen nonprofits and improve the way money flows to social good. As a leading community development financial institution (CDFI), NFF has invested more than $1.1 billion in financing and access to additional capital in support of over $3.6 billion in projects for thousands of organizations nationwide. Benson comes to us from TruFund Financial Services, a Black-led, nonprofit CDFI that provides affordable loan capital and business advisory services to historically disadvantaged small businesses and nonprofits. Prior to TruFund, Benson held community development finance roles at Carver Federal Savings, Banco Popular and JP Morgan Chase.  She has deployed $130 million in New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) funding and $175 million of capital to low-income communities, including $75 million in loans to small businesses and nonprofits. Benson serves on several key industry boards, including Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the NMTC Coalition (Board President) and NY CDFI Coalition (founding member and Board VP). She also serves on the advisory boards of the Woodforest CEI-Boulos Opportunity Fund and the Community Development Entities of US Bank and Coastal Enterprises. Benson holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University, a certificate in Social Impact Management and Leadership from the Institute for Nonprofit Practice, and a certificate through a Citi/OFN Sponsored Leadership Training Program for CDFI Executives at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Kyle Walton has more than 15 years of experience in community and economic development finance and real estate development. Walton founded Classic Lake, a community development advisory and real estate development firm in 2014. The firms’ advisory practice was established with an emphasis on supporting women- and minority-owned or led businesses impacting marginalized communities and communities of color. The firms’ real estate development practice focuses on new construction and rehabilitation opportunities within low-income communities and emerging domestic markets, with an emphasis on developing and preserving affordable and workforce housing. Under Walton’s leadership the firm has facilitated the placement of more than $650 million of investment into low-income communities throughout the nation. Common advisory clients include real estate developers, municipalities and government entities, financial institutions, academic and healthcare organizations, small businesses, and non-profits. Prior to founding Classic Lake, Walton served as a vice president within JPMorgan Chase’s Community Development Banking group and as vice president with SDS Capital Group (formerly Strategic Development Solutions), a boutique private equity fund development and management firm. Walton serves on multiple advisory boards including Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Health Foundation, Casa Familiar, a San Diego based Community Development Agency, and De Novo Healthcare Inc., a Compton based community clinic. Walton earned his master’s in business administration from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and his bachelor's degree from Morehouse College.

Donna Smith is the executive vice president and co-founder of Smith NMTC Associates LLC. In addition to being the lead writer of all new markets tax credit certification and allocation applications, Smith manages the compliance team that monitors the qualified active low-income community businesses (QALICBs) and provides reporting, compliance and financial counseling assistance to Smith CDE and QALICB clients, and all investor, CIIS, ATS and AMIS reporting. Within her own community, Smith works closely with organizations striving to better the City of St. Louis. She currently serves as board chair of City Garden Montessori School, an Anti-Bias Anti-Racist Montessori K-8 charter school and sliding scale pre-school in St. Louis. She has previously served as board president for America SCORES St. Louis, an affiliate of America SCORES; and as president, vice president and member of her local school board. Prior to founding Smith NMTC, Smith practiced law and did technical writing. A recipient of the William Webster Criminal Law Scholarship, she received her J.D. from Washington University School of Law and was on staff and published in the Washington University Law Quarterly. In private practice, Smith specialized in appellate work, appearing before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals as counsel for the Special School District in the St. Louis desegregation case. 

James D. Howard is the president of Dudley Ventures. A native of The Bronx, New York, Howard earned his degree from The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Dudley Ventures was founded by Howard in 1996 and has been one of the leading advocates of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program since its inception. Dudley Ventures, with its 25-plus member team, successfully manages NMTC investment funds in excess of $1.6 billion, providing all origination, fund reporting and compliance activities in-house. In addition, Dudley Ventures CDE, DV Community Investment, has been awarded $525 million of NMTC allocation to date. Acquired by Valley National Bancorp in October 2021, Dudley Ventures now has the resources of a $50 billion publicly traded financial institution. Howard is a board member of the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition and has been an innovator in the NMTC industry. Howard has authored numerous articles on tax credit investing and is a regular speaker at major NMTC conferences. Howard is a licensed member of the Arizona State Bar and holds the FINRA designation of principal and investment banker.

Judd Larson regularly represents community development entities, qualified active low income community businesses and investment entities in New Markets Tax Credit financing transactions throughout the country covering a wide range of projects. Larson has focused his practice in the new market tax credit industry since 2016 and has handled many projects combining different tax credits and financing sources including the first in the country financing utilizing 18 various credits and financing sources.  

Shawn Whitney is dedicated to structuring low-income housing, historic rehabilitation, and new markets tax credit transactions. He represents developers, investors, syndicators, lenders and Community Development Enterprises (CDEs). Whitney’s primary practice focus is representing all aspects of a tax credit financed transaction. His diverse expertise ranges from extensive experience in all of the aforementioned tax credit programs. In the New Market Tax Credit representing CDE’s on the deployment of New Markets Tax Credit allocations, Qualified Active Low Income Community Business, and equity investors deployment of capital. He also has a passion for affordable housing representing a lender in the financing of hundreds of millions of dollars of LIHTC construction and permanent debt for both 4% and 9% deals. He also actively represents LIHTC developers throughout the country. Finally, he has enjoyed being involved in a billion dollars of historic rehabilitation projects utilizing federal and state historic tax credits on both the development and financing side. Many of his projects also utilizes other incentives such as tax abatements/exemptions, and tax increment financing.

Nicole Boone has more than 15 years of experience in the finance industry. At Lendistry, she is responsible for capital raising, structured finance and capital deployment, and asset management compliance. Boone leads the effort to fund disadvantaged businesses through Lendistry’s new markets tax credits allocation, including a unique $24 million Small Business Loan Fund offering below-market-rate loans to SEDI businesses. She also led the public debt rating process for Lendistry’s $85 million senior debt offering, which received a grade A rating from Egan Jones. Boone previously served as executive director, senior commercial banker at JP Morgan Chase Bank, where she deployed more than $400 million in NMTC financing and created and led the first-ever Community Development Banking Racial Equity Special Purpose Credit Program (SPCP) targeting Black Americans. A graduate of Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, Boone also serves on the board of directors at Excellent Education Development (ExED), Citizens of the World, Los Angeles, and is on the executive leadership team at The Way Los Angeles.

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.

As an Acquisitions Manager, Kathleen is responsible for identifying, structuring and preliminary underwriting prospective federal/state HTC and NMTC investments. She also manages the closing process for Historic Tax Credit and New Markets Tax Credit investments. Kathleen has been with NTCIC for 11 years, originally joining the team as an Asset Manager. Prior to this, she served as a Real Estate Development Manager for a financial advisory firm. In this role, Kathleen managed the commercial and residential real estate portfolio and collaborated with urban planners, researchers, builders and other professionals during the development stages of mixed-use real estate developments in Texas and Louisiana. She holds an MBA from the University of Texas, McCombs School of Business, focused on Real Estate Finance.