Gaurang Vyas is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rise Line and is a member of the Investment Committee. Gaurang is responsible for leading the day-to-day strategy of the firm. He allocates his time across sourcing, underwriting, portfolio management, and reporting.
Gaurang has focused on specialty finance banking & investing since 2006. He founded Rise Line to provide institutional-quality financing solutions to lower middle-market companies. He saw the need while co-managing the investment program at a $1+ billion family office. Here, Gaurang played a key role in developing the firm’s investment program and led investments in asset classes across credit and equity strategies. Prior to joining the family office, Gaurang covered specialty finance companies in the financial institutional group at UBS Investment Bank. Prior to that, he had held positions as an engineer in consulting firms and startups. Gaurang holds a BS in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Michigan. He is a member of the Secured Finance Network and the Turnaround Management Association.
Eric Donnelly is a member of the Investment Committee. He has served as a Director and as Chief Executive Officer of Rise Line’s parent company Crossroads since December 2017. Mr. Donnelly has spent his 20-year career focused on supporting small businesses and developing low to moderate income communities with an emphasis on Hispanic homeownership. He has served as Capital Plus Financial LLC’s Chief Executive Officer since 2014 after having been hired by the company’s founder in 2012 to scale the 25-year social enterprise. Mr. Donnelly has grown the company into one of the largest Community Development Financial Institutions in the country and under his leadership has achieved its B Corp certification, further reinforcing the company’s commitment to community impact as well as shareholder value growth. In 2005 after many years in commercial banking, Mr. Donnelly founded a national small balance commercial real estate finance company focused on delivering long term, fixed rate options to small business owners. He is an active Hispanic entrepreneur and leader whose passion is to improve underserved and underbanked market segments. Mr. Donnelly is a graduate of Southern Methodist University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. Mr. Donnelly is a Director of InBankshares and International Bank, a community bank located in New Mexico and Colorado. He is a on the board of Financial Mentors of America, Inc. (FMA), an educational nonprofit which seeks to achieve social and economic transformation. He is a participant in the BBVA Momentum program for Social Entrepreneurs, a 2017 graduate of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneur Initiative.
Farzana Giga is the Chief Financial Officer at Rise Line and a member of the Investment Committee. Ms. Giga has served as Capital Plus Financials’ Chief Financial Officer since 2014. Ms. Giga’s background includes extensive experience in private equity, financial reporting and analysis, investor reporting and treasury for both private and public companies in Canada and the United States. Prior to Capital Plus, Ms. Giga served as CFO for a private equity firm focused on residential seller financing including acquisitions, mortgage origination and mortgage servicing for a portfolio exceeding $100M. From 2007 to 2009, she worked as an Investment Manager at Quadrant Capital Partners where she was responsible for loan acquisitions and financial analysis of residential and commercial real estate. Prior to Quadrant, Ms. Giga resided in Canada and worked for various large public and private organizations including Call-Net Enterprises, Fidelity Investments, Sunlife Management and RR Donelley. Her roles and responsibilities were focused on financial accounting, strategic and financial planning, cash flow management and analysis, quarterly and annual SEC filings along with mergers and acquisitions analysis. Ms. Giga served as a Director of Treasury at RR Donnelley, responsible for managing a debt portfolio of $2B. Ms. Giga is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Management Accountant in Ontario, Canada and received her Bachelor of Arts, Economics (Management & Accounting) from the University of Toronto.
Allan Gajadhar serves as the Executive Director of Loan Operations and brings over 15 years of financial services and operational experience to Rise Line. His career includes significant experience in the operational aspect of asset-based lending. He has served throughout his career in management roles overseeing daily collateral, banking and workouts.
Prior to joining Rise Line, he served as the Vice President of Operations at Medallion Financial Corporation and prior to that served as Vice President, Client Services of Medallion Business Credit (a division of Medallion Financial Corp). Before joining Medallion, he held a managerial position in the US wholesale market industry. Mr. Gajadhar has an Engineering degree from The University of the West Indies, Trinidad. He is a member of the Commercial Finance Association (CFA).
Francisco serves as the Executive Director of Portfolio Management at Rise Line and brings over 17 years of commercial finance experience in various capacities including risk and portfolio management, field examination, collateral analysis, and ABL systems integration. Prior to joining Rise Line, Francisco was Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Siena Lending Group, LLC. Francisco’s ABL background also includes various credit and operational roles at Burdale Capital Finance and GE Capital.
Francisco earned an MBA from the University of New Haven and a BBA from Western Connecticut State University.
Philip Sorrell serves as the Controller for Rise Line and Capital Plus Financial. With over 20 years of leadership in business and finance, he began his career in public accounting and is currently a CPA licensed in the state of North Carolina. Phil has held leadership roles with private equity backed companies, various Textron business units and Cabot Corporation where he developed skills in accounting, operations and processes improvement. Phil holds an MBA from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Appalachian State University.