Meet the Alliance Partners Client Services Team that advises and supports BancAlliance community bank members. We use our experience to build relationships with BancAlliance members and create a lending strategy that works for your institution and risk appetite.
Jim smith
Regional Director, Client Services
Tom is a Regional Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners. Prior to Alliance Partners, Tom was with Bankers' Bank in Northern Illinois focused on building relationships with community banks and providing commercial products and services to increase earning assets and fee income. He has 35 years of experience in commercial banking and finance, including cash flow and asset-based lending, auditing, portfolio management, and business development. Tom received his M.B.A. from the University of Illinois – Chicago and a B.S. from University of Illinois – Champaign/Urbana. Tom has served on the Board of Directors for Special Olympics IL since 2008.
Fun Fact: He started playing golf right-handed, then played with left-handed irons and right-handed woods, and only recently plays left-handed, but still putts righty.
Tom Thompson
Regional Director, Client Services
Tom is a Regional Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners. Prior to Alliance Partners, Tom was with Bankers' Bank in Northern Illinois focused on building relationships with community banks and providing commercial products and services to increase earning assets and fee income. He has 35 years of experience in commercial banking and finance, including cash flow and asset-based lending, auditing, portfolio management, and business development. Tom received his M.B.A. from the University of Illinois – Chicago and a B.S. from University of Illinois – Champaign/Urbana. Tom has served on the Board of Directors for Special Olympics IL since 2008.
Fun Fact: He started playing golf right-handed, then played with left-handed irons and right-handed woods, and only recently plays left-handed, but still putts righty.
David Schwarz
Senior Managing Director, Client Services
David is a Senior Managing Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners, serving as program manager for the Commercial Loan Program. Prior to joining Alliance Partners, he was an Associate Director at UBS Investment Bank in the Financial Sponsors & Leveraged Finance Group where he focused on structuring and underwriting broadly syndicated loans for private equity and corporate clients. David was previously with a litigation consulting firm performing due diligence and forensic accounting services and before that was with PricewaterhouseCoopers. David is a CPA (Virginia) and received his MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in finance and accounting from the University of Virginia.
Fun Fact: At his previous firm, Dave helped underwrite the loan that revived Hostess. He learned that the shelf life of a Twinkie was recently extended from 26-days to 45-days. His initial guess of 50 years was way off.
John Pulliam
Managing Director, Client Services
John is a Managing Director of Alliance Partners working in the Client Services team to further business development. Prior to joining Alliance Partners, John worked for CEB (Corporate Executive Board) on both the business development and client relationship teams, focusing on advisory support in the Corporate Finance space. During his time at CEB, he worked with many senior executives and their teams to drive performance in a number of different areas within finance. John received his degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fun Fact: John made his first ever eagle while playing with BancAlliance members in Florida during the 2017 Spring Meeting.
Amy Mosko
Event and Client Engagement Manager, Client Services
Amy Mosko is an Event and Client Engagement Manager of Alliance Partners working in the Client Services team to further business development and manage events. Amy received her undergraduate degree in Strategic Communication from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Fun Fact: On two occasions, Amy has brought her bank’s pneumatic tube home, now prompting a warning before she drives away.
John Linton
Director, Client Services
John has worked with Alliance Partners and Forbright Bank for the past 3.5 years managing consumer lending and small business lending partnerships. Previously, he worked for a private credit fund managing similar small business lending partnerships. John started his career working for FirstBank, a regional bank in Colorado. He has a bachelors degree from the University of Colorado and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.
Brennan Kolar
Senior Financial Analyst, Client Services
Brennan is a Senior Financial Analyst for Client Services at Alliance Partners. Brennan graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in the spring of 2019 with a major in Accounting and Information Systems and worked in public accounting as an auditor and consultant for the last 2 ½ years in the Philly area. He grew up just north of Philadelphia and recently moved to the DC area. In his free time, Brennan loves to sing and make music, as well as play good golf.
Fun Fact: He played ice hockey growing up and is a huge Flyers fan (sorry to all the Capitals fans!)
Brendan Hart
Managing Director, Client Services
Brendan is a Managing Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners. Brendan joined the Clients Services team after spending three years working with the Portfolio Management and Underwriting team at Alliance Partners. Prior to joining Alliance Partners, Brendan was a Vice President at Citigroup in the Debt Capital Markets division focused on structuring and underwriting broadly syndicated loans and bonds for institutional and government clients. Brendan received his B.S. from the University of Maryland.
Fun Fact: Brendan does not use ATM machines during thunderstorms. This is a long story which he is happy to share, involving a cash-only restaurant and a poorly timed lightning strike in rural France.
Caroline Hall
Event and Client Engagement Director, Client Services
Caroline Hall is the Event and Client Engagement Director of Alliance Partners working in the Client Services team to further business development and manage events. Caroline received her undergraduate degree in Strategic Communication and Entrepreneurship from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Fun Fact: The banker at Caroline’s local bank has been there since she was 5 years old, and he still offers her lollipops at every visit.
Wayne Gore
Senior Managing Director, Client Services
Wayne is a Senior Managing Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners. Prior to joining Alliance Partners, Wayne held leadership roles in the Financial Institutions Group with McKinsey & Co. and served as Managing Director at the CEB (Corporate Executive Board) focused on corporate strategy, banking and insurance, and risk management. Previously, Wayne was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs as a member of the Mergers & Acquisitions teams. Wayne received his A.B. from Princeton University and his J.D. and M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Fun Fact: At an old boss’s request and before email was invented, Wayne got to ride the Concorde once…to deliver presentation books (last pickup at FedEx had already passed).
Brian Good
Regional Director, Client Services
Brian is a Regional Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners. For over 20 years, he has been serving community banks, bringing a wealth of experience to BancAlliance members. Brian received his B.S. from Shippensburg University and graduated from the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Georgetown University.
Fun Fact: Brian may not look like it now but he was a State Champion Pole Vaulter in High School. He was also Nationally ranked Decathlete in College and a member of a record breaking, nationally ranked college football team while at Shippensburg University where several of his teammates made it to the NFL as players and coaches.
Francesco Chichizola
Assistant Vice President, Client Services
Francesco is an Assistant Vice President for Client Services at Alliance Partners. Francesco joins the Clients Services team after spending two years working with the Loan Servicing department at Alliance Partners. He graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Finance at Old Dominion University.
David Brooks
Senior Managing Director, Client Services
David is a Senior Managing Director of Client Services at Alliance Partners. Prior to Alliance Partners, David worked at FBR & Co and JP Morgan where he was an investment banker in their financial institutions group covering banks & thrifts. He began his career at BankBoston in their financial institutions group after completing their Corporate Banker Program. After the Bank of America acquisition of Fleet, he helped start the correspondent banking group at Eastern Bank, an $8B mutual bank in Boston. David received his B.A. from Union College.
Fun Fact: Fresh into his banking career in Boston, Dave would moonlight as a Spin instructor at Boston Sports Club. Let us know if you ever attended his class!
Lori Bettinger
Co-President
Lori is the Co-President of Alliance Partners and serves as the President of BancAlliance. Prior to joining Alliance Partners, Lori served as the Director of the TARP Capital Purchase Program at the Department of the Treasury, focusing on the implementation, investing, and restructuring cycles of the $205 billion portfolio. From 2004-2008, she was a financial economist with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Trading and Markets. Lori received her M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and her B.A. from Yale University.
Fun Fact: A proud Kansan, Lori's childhood banking account was at BancAlliance Member 256.