Mary Carsen, vice president, program management – vendor services for Mitsubishi HC Capital America, leads a team of 12 that manage all customer-facing documents and internal flow processes from purchase order to payment.
Her career with Mitsubishi HC Capital America began in 2006, when the company was a small independent leasing shop. Despite numerous changes, such as mergers and business model variations, Carsen’s commitment to the company and her people has remained constant. She is an integral employee and pillar of the company.
One of Carsen’s primary successes stems from building the internal documentation team from the ground up. Another success came in April 2023, when three subsidiaries of Mitsubishi HC Capital merged, and a large project commenced to harmonize all three operations centers, while continuing day-today operations to ensure customers and vendors experienced seamless and fast funding. Carsen was instrumental in the project and was able to identify best practices from each company to create the new operations center.
In early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, Carsen recognized the need for Mitsubishi HC Capital America to go paperless. At the time, the company signed physical contracts and documents to be transferred from one party to another, and the paper itself was stored in the office. Carsen took it upon herself to move operations to a completely paperless format. When COVID-19 forced everyone out of office to work remotely, employees were already set up for success and able to continue operations without missing a beat.
“I have had the pleasure of working with Mary for the past 16 years. As she has progressed in her career, I have seen a constant drive in her to become more knowledgeable about her specific areas as well as the leasing industry as a whole,” James Teal, senior vice president of healthcare, technology and franchise – vendor services at Mitsubishi HC Capital America, said. “She has a solutions- oriented mindset, which I find more and more rare in the industry. Too often, people that finance operations managers are rigid and set in their ways. Mary has the unique ability to find ways to accomplish what is needed for the company while, at the same time, finding a solution that works for our vendors and our customers.”
Carsen is both a manager and a mentor for her team. She advocates for and continuously promotes employees, which explains why the average experience and tenure for employees on her team is seven years. She hopes her lasting legacy will be seen in the accomplishments of the people she has mentored and the impact they make on the equipment finance industry.
“In our time together, we have gone from a small, privately-held company to being a part of a large, international, publicly-held corporation. Through all of this, Mary and her team have been able to maintain the close relationships with our vendors, which is critical to our success,” Teal says. “Her leadership, integrity and management style has positioned us as a top-tier vendor program finance partner. I am grateful to have worked alongside her and am very thankful that we are on the same team!”
“Don’t hesitate to ask questions and don’t be afraid to make a mistake! The key to a successful career is to learn as much as possible so you have the experience to grow. What you do in your daily work, whether it’s operations, sales or credit, will affect every department within the company.”