Lending Advisor

Job Title: Lending Advisor

Reports to: Chief Lending Officer

Status: Full time, Exempt

Location: Northern Minnesota

Market Territory Ownership:

This position will report to the Duluth office, providing coverage in Itasca, Koochiching, Cass and Aitkin Counties, and portions of western St. Louis County.

Position Overview

The Lending Advisor provides trusted guidance to small business owners and disciplined capital deployed to achieve their goals. They do this with the primary functions of:

• Improving the client’s business performance and accomplishment of their long-term goals through trusted relationships and business guidance
• Working with business owners to effectively capitalize their business through the use of EFund financing and other sources of funding, as appropriate

The role of the Lending Advisor is to learn the business owner’s aspirations, assess the business owners capabilities, assess the business, and create a value-add partnership to sustain strong business performance and meet business goals. The lending advisor does this via a relationship defined in delivering trusted guidance and capital. This individual is ready to quickly establish a strong working relationship, act as a trusted guide, and co-developing capital options with the client and other financing partners while building a long-term relationship towards supporting the business owner’s goals and strong business performance.

Lending Advisors also represent EFund in their respective markets, providing intentional and sustained business development activities to create value-added networks for EFund and its clients, and to source new client relationships and lending opportunities. This role must deliver on being a valued partner in the financial ecosystem, which requires strong relationships and a deeper understanding of key stakeholders, including, but not limited to, regional economic development lenders, banks, credit unions, and other statewide financing partners.

The Lending Advisor is engaged, professional, and highly visible in the communities EFund serves, participating in local business community events and representing EFund as a speaker/presenter at regional meetings and conferences.

The Lending Advisor is an active participant with other EFund staff in learning and improving over time, in accordance with our Core Values. Mastery of the role – and success in hitting impact and lending goals – requires sustained commitment to learning, growth, and knowledge-sharing with a dynamic team. The right candidate will bring significant experience, but also be a humble, active learner who sees their work as an ongoing craft.

Organization Overview

The Entrepreneur Fund (EFund) is a mission-driven economic development organization and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) headquartered in Duluth, covering a 29-county service area and 12 sovereign tribal nations in central and northeastern Minnesota, and northern Wisconsin. Our mission is to actively partner with entrepreneurs to create growing businesses, thriving communities, and a diversified, resilient regional economy. As a non-profit lender, we help entrepreneurs create growing businesses, thriving communities, and vibrant regional economies. We do this through personalized lending coupled with business advising services for clients across an array of industry sectors and business stages.

EFund provides business financing ranging from microloans as low as $15,000 to complex structures of more than $1,000,000, supported by a variety of business advising services and programming, serving an average of 1,300 clients annually. EFund has provided more than $174 million in small business financing since its inception, with a goal of $19 million in deployed capital in 2026.

Efund seeks to become the region’s leading impact investor by growing a loan portfolio comprised of a diverse mix of customer segments that include start-ups, main-street businesses, growth-track companies, and businesses in ownership transition. Efund’s primary role is to ensure access to financing and trusted guidance for our region’s small businesses.

Measures of Success:

Successful outcomes of this role relates to Efund financial & impact performance. Goals for this role are set annually and include:

Individual portfolio performance of active clients with outcomes related to:

• Impact - Cover a variety of business stages & impacts core to Efund’s mission, goals, and strategies
• Business Performance - Achieving their goals
• Portfolio Quality - Risk Rating improves

Loan Originations

Efund financial performance:

• Loan Originations: Fee & Interest Income
• Portfolio Health: <1% charge-offs, <5% delinquencies over 30 days

Operational grant metrics:

• Client Hours, others as assigned
• Deployment of types of loans (Healthy Foods, etc)

Strategic Grant Metrics: As assigned

• Network strength, activity, and satisfaction that drives business development & delivers value-add to clients and stakeholders
• Repeat Borrowers

Position Essential Duties

Consultative Lending and Loan Origination (50%)

• Practice consultative lending by working one-on-one with clients on confidential and complex financial structures and business opportunities
• Verify, validate and offer lending-related feedback on:
• Business plans, business models, and market positioning
• Business cash flow projections and corresponding assumptions
• Personal financial information for business applicants
• Applicant business information compared to industry standards
• Consistently achieve individual loan origination goals, driving EFund financial outcomes and deploying capital to support new business starts, stabilizations, expansions, and ownership transitions/succession
• Structure loans and develop sources/uses recommendations that may include banks or credit unions, economic development and community gap lenders, and state and federal grant and loan programs

Independently manage loan process by consistently moving projects through EFund pipeline stages and managing customer expectations:

• Lead – Identify and evaluate potential clients and projects
• Pre-screen – Review and vet clients based on their needs, EFund value proposition, program eligibility, and initial loan structuring
• Application – Support clients through document collection for effective applications
• Underwriting – Work with credit analysts to complete underwriting
• Voting – Present loan packages to loan committee
• Closing – Support clients through loan closing process
• Lead clients to identify 1-2 milestones and KPIs that are determinants to success in achieving the client’s long-term plans for growth
• Timely completion of administrative functions, including documenting work time (billable hours), client success measures, and impact stories
• Develop a strong working fluency with software platforms used to process loans and track client work, including Salesforce, Spark, and TEA/CommonGoals

Through ongoing professional training, develop personal expertise in:

• EFund loan programs and the funder obligations associated with each program
• Entrepreneur Fund loan policies and procedures
• Entrepreneur Fund Business Services offerings and tools
• All forms of Commercial lending best practices
• Business consulting and economic development best practices
• Quality jobs initiatives
• Provide advising and guidance to EFund clients who make loan requests, but who may not be ready for financing, and know when to refer clients to other service providers like the Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)

Trusted Guidance for Client Success (25%)

• Manage a diverse portfolio of existing EFund clients balanced across start-ups, main-street businesses, growth-track companies, and ownership succession, and provide guidance in business performance, support, and achievement of their goals
• Conduct periodic check-ins to assess business health, performance against established milestones and KPIs, and completion of targeted impacts
• Provide guidance, consultation and referrals on general business topics: strategy, operations, financial management, marketing, HR, and more
• Provide on-going opportunities to meet new capital needs
• Leverage EFund’s expert network or other key networks to meet the client’s needs and advance their goals

Business Development (25%)

Develop a strong network of referral partners in a designated portion of the EFund service area, including:

• Banks and credit unions
• Local, state and federal agencies
• Economic development organizations
• Trade associations and business networking groups
• Chambers of commerce
• Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)
• Develop target lists of prospective clients for business lending in specific industries and targeted geographic areas
• Actively participate in EFund webinars, business training programs, Distinction Awards, and other events, promoting events to clients and driving attendance to achieve intended outcomes
• Represent EFund as a speaker/presenter at partner organizations’ regional meetings, conferences, and events
• Help organize, promote and participate in regional “Non-Traditional Lender Forums,” or similar gap lender presentations hosted by EFund and its referral partners
• Actively support EFund marketing campaigns and promote brand messaging through direct outreach and social media activities
• Demonstrate fluency in telling the EFund story and speaking to our unique value-proposition

The Ideal Candidate

The right person will bring demonstrated proficiency and sustained interest in working with businesses at a variety of stages – start-up, established, growth, and exit - for long-term success and business financing. The ability to connect with entrepreneurial business owners and quickly assess the individuals, their needs, and their business, is essential to success in the role. Ideal candidates possess a mastery of small business financing options and an ability to provide effective strategic guidance, while structuring financing pathways EFund can deliver on.

EFund clients often have gaps in meeting their capital needs for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from seasoned entrepreneurs and high-growth companies with strong management teams that need equity capital, to a first-time entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on new opportunities. The right candidate will be able to assess and understand a business, influence them towards their goals, and pair a variety of sources of capital to meet their needs.

The ideal candidate is motivated to act as a long-term trusted guide, and is committed to maintaining long-term relationships with a growing portfolio of clients. Through a balanced, objective approach to assessing the business and the owner, Lending Advisors utilize a consultative approach to creating a win-win-win for our clients, for EFund, and for our external partners.

Lending Advisors actively manage an individual portfolio of existing EFund clients, providing consulting and advising services across all stages of the business lifecycle in support of driving new business starts, stabilizations, expansions, and ownership transitions/succession.

The Lending Advisor is an active participant with other EFund staff in learning and improving over time, in accordance with our Core Values. Mastery of the role – and success in hitting impact and lending goals – requires sustained commitment to learning, growth, and knowledge-sharing with a dynamic team. The right candidate will bring significant experience, but also be a humble, active learner who sees their work as an ongoing craft.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with concentration in business, finance, accounting, or related field
• 5+ years of relevant experience in commercial lending, business ownership, economic development, or business advisory experience preferred. Minimum of 3 years required
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills
• Strong acumen for interpersonal relationship-building
• MS Office Excel/Word/Outlook/Power Point
• Excellent time management with great attention to detail
• Comfortable and confident in networking and business presentation settings
• Experience working with Salesforce or a similar CRM platform is a plus
• Unwavering commitment to EFund Core Values

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Proficiency in assessing businesses and business owners

• Demonstrates an enduring belief that assessing a business owner and the business is a critical element to a collaborative relationship and being a successful lending advisor
• Assessing and understanding business needs and business models at various stages: start-up, maturity, growth, and ownership transitions
• Demonstrates an investor mindset; maintains an objective view of the business and the business owner digs deep to conduct their own due diligence, and sees their work as a value-add for both the business owner and EFund
• Probes, tests, verifies, and validates key assumptions through effective means, before providing a clear and objective analysis
• Tests for key attributes include: self-awareness, win-win-win thinking, skin in the game, and coachability

Proficiency in guiding small business owners

• Demonstrates an enduring belief and understanding that small business and entrepreneurship requires a unique mix of technical, managerial, and leadership skills that evolve with the stage of business
• Demonstrates key competencies in consulting, advising, and mentorship relationships
• Strong emotional intelligence and ability to uncover a person’s underlying motivations, concerns, and aspirations
• Ability to effectively guide small business owners, create trusting long-term relationships, and match interventions for capital and guidance
• Leads with a curious, probing approach while matching the client’s commitment
• Acts effectively – in service to all, and with skill – when clarity is achieved to move the business forward
• Gains trust, respect, and credibility from a variety of business owners across all stages

Proficiency in business development and consultative lending

• Ability to build long-term, trusting, and value-added relationships with a variety of stakeholders
• Able to demonstrate value through effective deal structuring that is a win-win-win for clients, EFund, and our external stakeholders
• Customer-service oriented to setting, managing, and exceeding expectations
• Professional demeanor and unwavering integrity

Proficiency in commercial lending and/or investing

• Understand and interpret business operations, business models, and legal structures
• Strong practices and judgement in due diligence; 5 C’s, or other lending frameworks for credit analysis
• Analysis of business loan requests
• Analysis of profit and loss statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements
• Loan structuring and drafting sources/uses
• Management of client expectations and experience in the process
• Strong understanding of the various lending and investing mechanisms available, how to access them, and how to assess appropriate fits for clients
• Ability to understand the needs and requirements for securing capital

Entrepreneur Fund Core Values

Get things done

• Be organized & efficient
• Work hard - persist & maintain your focus
• Stay focused
• Ask for help before the end

Mutually commit

• Commit to the committed – customers, staff, communities, and partners
• Commitment is demonstrated, not perceived
• Give everyone a chance to show it
• Believe what they show you
• Do your part
• Expect lasting results from relationships
• Have the hard conversations

Effective teamwork

• Take great satisfaction in meeting team goals
• Strive for team excellence – suggest improvements, learn from failures
• Organizational strength is fortified through each member’s performance
• Keep your communication open, genuine, and honest
• No blame or disrespect
• Celebrate our wins and give specific praise

Commit to the Greater Good

• Impact is our motivator: entrepreneurs & community
• Do what is better for the whole
• Shine a light on real progress
• Be of service to change-makers & doers
• Walk away from the toxic

Growth Mindset: Individually and Organizationally

• Build and sustain practices of learning and knowledge building
• Challenge yourself & others to reflect, share and identify the learn
• Implement & encourage practices of continuous improvement

Pay: $79,000.00 - $105,000.00 per year

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Grand Rapids, MN 55744