Speakers

Saurabh Narain is president and CEO of National Community Investment Fund (NCIF), an impact investor and CDFI focused on mission-oriented financial institutions including minority and CDFI banks. He is a banking executive with almost 35 years of global experience building highly profitable businesses both in the for-profit and nonprofit environments. Under his leadership, NCIF has increased its AUM to $200 million, created more than 10,000 jobs and is the largest investor in CDFI and minority banks. NCIF seeks to generate impact in underserved markets nationally using its three lines of businesses–equity investing into mission-oriented financial institutions, deployment of new markets tax credits and lending.  In 2019, NCIF launched a $35 million credit strategies fund to increase co-lending with its network banks.Impact measurement is foundational to all activities of NCIF. Narainis a member of the investors council of the Global Impact Investing Network, the board of the CDFI Coalition, advisory board of Wells Fargo Community Development Entity and Community Development Venture Capital Alliance. He was a past member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council chaired by Chairman Ben Bernanke and advisory board of Ripple. Prior to NCIF, Narain has had extensive experience in capital markets and risk management having worked at Bank of America for almost 17 years based in Asia and the United States. Narain is a graduate of the ABA Graduate Stonier School of Banking, and hold an MBA from Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India.

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.

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.

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.

Christopher Allison is the program manager for the new markets tax credit (NMTC) program at the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. Mr. Allison previously served as associate program manager for the NMTC program. He oversaw the development of NMTC application materials, led the implementation of the NMTC evaluation process in the CDFI Fund’s new Awards Management Information System, and made recommendations for tax credit allocations. Prior to joining the CDFI Fund, Mr. Allison was a program manager at Single Stop USA, where he oversaw grant and performance management for a national portfolio of community-based organizations related to income supports. He worked on several innovative workforce development and asset building projects at Seedco, a national economic development intermediary. Mr. Allison has also held positions with Self-Help Ventures Fund and the Center for Community Capital in North Carolina. Mr. Allison holds a Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an emphasis on economic development, and a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Eugene Lang College at The New School in New York.

Laura Vowell is the Managing Director of Community Finance Solutions at U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance. Her team invests in New Markets and Historic Tax Credits and lends to CDFIs and other intermediaries. Since joining USBIF in 2005, Vowell has been instrumental in investing billions of dollars of tax credit equity into projects around the country. Previously, she managed the national team of NMTC and HTC originators who secure funding for a diverse array of projects, from food banks and performing arts centers, to grocery stores and historic hotels.

Vowell is a vocal advocate for Racial Equity within the New Market Tax Credit industry and is a regular speaker at national community development and historic preservation industry conferences and tax credit-related events. She is a Founder of Women in Tax Credits, the Board Member of the NMTC Coalition, and on the Executive Committee of the Partnership for Job Creation. She is currently a member of the St. Louis Symphony’s Community Advisory Committee and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

Vowell began her career in the Washington D.C. area as a transportation engineer. Prior to joining USBIF, she worked with a private real estate developer, managing several redevelopment projects in the Los Angeles area. She holds an M.B.A. from the Anderson School of Business at UCLA and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.