Louis Caditz-Peck serves as the Executive Director of the Responsible Business Lending Coalition, a leading cross-sector voice on innovation and small business financial protection. The RBLC represents over one thousand for-profit lenders, nonprofit organizations, and small business groups. Across many differences, these groups have come together to improve small businesses’ access to capital and stop the rise of predatory small business lending.

Prior to leading the Responsible Business Lending Coalition, Louis was a practitioner and policy advocate in fintech, bank, CDFI, and nonprofit advocacy organizations. After serving as a small business lender at the CDFI Self-Help Credit Union, Louis joined the fintech company LendingClub to launch its expansion into small business lending. The financing program that Louis proposed has served more than 10,000 small businesses, while modeling responsible practices based on the Small Business Borrowers’ Bill of Rights. Louis grew that business line into an award-winning partnership with the CDFI Accion Opportunity Fund, combining the complementary strengths of fintechs and CDFIs.

Louis served as an appointed member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) Consumer Advisory Board from 2021-2023. He has helped to pass seven federal and state laws to improve industry practices and catalyze innovation in the small business financing market. He also co-founded the Marketplace Lending Association and American Fintech Council trade groups. Louis currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Aspen Institute and to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and on the board of CAMEO Network. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and attended the MBA program at UC Berkeley.

Karida Collins is the indie dyer and owner of the Neighborhood Fiber Co. Karida founded the company in the kitchen of her Washington, D.C. apartment in 2006, bringing to the world her love of city life and saturated, layered colour.

Now based in Baltimore, Maryland, Neighborhood Fiber Co. offers customers a vivid and vibrant lineup of hand-dyed yarns and fibres. With a range varying in weight from lace to chunky, every skein of yarn and braid of fibre is lovingly hand-dyed in one of over 65 colours, each named after a neighbourhood of Baltimore or nearby Washington, D.C.  Neighborhood Fiber Co. has been featured in publications including Baltimore Magazine and BmoreArt. In 2020, Karida founded the NFC Momentum Fund, a donor-advised charitable fund that has distributed more than $100k in grants to community organizations in Baltimore.

Ashley Urisman is the director of state government affairs at the American Fintech Council (AFC). Prior to joining AFC, Ashley was the regular affairs manager at Allwyn North America, the operating partner of the Illinois Lottery, where she served as the primary liaison with the Illinois Department of the Lottery and managed relationships in the Illinois General Assembly. Before Allwyn, Ashley worked with other professional associations including the National Association of Women Lawyers and the American Association of Diabetes Educators (now called ADCES). Ashley started her career working on political campaigns in the Chicagoland area after earning her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Jesse Van Tol is the president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). He has been with NCRC since 2006 and has held a variety of leadership positions, eventually becoming chief executive in 2018. His work championing fair and responsible banking has resulted in $580 billion in new investments in low- and moderate-income communities through Community Benefits Agreements with banking institutions. Through his leadership, NCRC has grown today to an organization with assets of $176 million and an annual budget of $35 million.

Jesse is a popular speaker and lecturer. He has testified before Congress, appeared on NPR, Financial Times Films and Bloomberg TV, and been interviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the AP Newswire, Politico, the American Banker, and many other news outlets. He has had opinion pieces published by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the American Banker.

He also sits on a variety of advisory boards, including the Federal Reserve Board’s consumer advisory council and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s affordable housing advisory councils. He is a member of the consumer advisory councils of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Truist, TD, Fifth Third, Huntington National Bank, First Horizon, Quicken Loans, Santander, and numerous others. Jesse was also a senior fellow with Humanity in Action, an international human rights group, and is a communications institute fellow with Opportunity Agenda.

Jesse received his bachelor’s degree in history and international studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he received an executive education certificate from the Harvard Kennedy School as part of NeighborWorks’ Achieving Excellence.