Santander Bank made six new hires in its Equipment Finance group as part of its strategy to continue to grow the business. The new hires include:

Kelly Lane, SVP, equipment manager, is responsible for risk mitigation, valuation and profitability management of financed and leased assets. He has 20 years of asset management and corporate lending experience across a diverse set of asset types. Lane has held senior leadership positions at CIT Group, GE Capital, Somerset Capital and the RVI Group. He is a member of the American Society of Appraisers.

Stewart B. Moore, director of Equipment Finance New Business, is responsible for a large territory in Florida and other states in the Southeast. He has been in banking for nearly 30 years and spent the past 22 focused on equipment finance and leasing sales. He joined Santander from Commerce Bank Equipment Finance. Moore has worked at US Bank, Wells Fargo, Wachovia and KeyBank.

Nancy Mullen, leasing portfolio management associate, is responsible for documentation and loan and lease closings. She joined Santander from Randolph Savings Bank where she was a commercial loan administrator in the Commercial Real Estate group. Prior to that, she spent 30 years at BTMU Capital, the leasing subsidiary of MUFG, where she supported and managed the documentation, execution and administration of equipment loans, including leasing in the corporate and commercial markets, municipal leasing and asset-based finance/securitizations groups. Mullen also managed the Marketing Administration at BTMU.

Cecile Latouche, credit manager and team leader, is responsible for managing underwriting and portfolio management. Prior to joining Santander, she spent 10 years with Societe Generale Equipment Finance (SGEF) where she was part of the founding team of SGEF US. Latouche was instrumental in driving SGEF US growth to more than $1 billion as a member of the leadership team. She has held various positions in export, aviation and commodity finance within Societe Generale Investment Bank and has experience in transaction structuring and underwriting, workouts and operations management.

Ned Khouri, AVP equipment finance underwriter, joined the Credit Underwriting team from the bank’s Asset Based Lending team where he managed the underwriting process for a portfolio of traditional asset-based lending, finance company and mortgage warehouse credits. In his new role, Khouri is responsible for underwriting corporate equipment transactions and portfolio management duties. He began his career at Allied Irish Bank as an analyst on the Energy Finance team where he was responsible for originating, underwriting and executing transactions.

Lina Gao, VP, equipment finance underwriter, is responsible for underwriting corporate equipment transactions and portfolio management duties. She started her career in commercial aircraft leasing and has worked on pricing, underwriting, origination, syndication and capital markets functions. She worked for aircraft lessors GE Capital Aviation Services and Pegasus before joining CIT Capital Markets and HNA Group.