John Martella will join Navitas Credit, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Community Bank, as senior vice president of the newly formed Navitas Capital division. This new division will be focused on middle market transactions starting at $500,000 and providing a variety of funding solutions for companies with revenues of more than $10 million. Business will be sourced through relationships with equipment vendors, certain franchise concepts, independent lessors, financial institutions and captives.

Martella has more than 35 years of experience and more than $3 billion dollars funded throughout his career.

“I am confident that by joining Navitas, I will be able to better serve the needs of all my valued clients,” Martella said. “The company has demonstrated best-in-class technology-based solutions that provide the highest level of execution and service to its business partners and their customers. We will be leveraging the resources and infrastructure of Navitas and developing the types of products and services that will make Navitas one of the premier providers of middle market equipment finance solutions.”

Gary Shivers, president and CEO of Navitas, added, “John is a seasoned leader with the expertise we need to successfully build and grow in this market segment. The recent acquisition by United Community Bank has provided the additional capital required to be competitive in middle market. We are very excited about having John as a member of our leadership team.”

Jean Cutting also will join the division as vice president of Business Development. Cutting has more than 30 years of experience in middle market lending and has previously held positions at US Bank Equipment Finance, Bank of America and LCA.