Commercial Construction & Real Estate Team Leader

At Spring Garden, a subsidiary of OceanFirst Bank, each one of our employees plays an important role in fulfilling the mission and taking responsibility to execute daily tasks in alignment with our core values. Together we foster an environment of respect, professionalism and diversity that makes OceanFirst a great place to work and do business.

ABOUT SPRING GARDEN: Spring Garden Lending is a specialty finance company focused solely on meeting the unique needs of small and midsize real estate developers and investors building, renovating and managing housing and mixed use properties. Our focus is on speed, certainty, and common-sense flexibility enabled by a commitment to long term relationships and extraordinary client service.

ABOUT YOUR ROLE:
The position of Senior Vice President and Market Leader ("SVP") is responsible for the acquisition of new commercial real estate and construction borrowers and the expansion/retention of existing relationships. The SVP will be responsible for originating his or her own loans and managing his or her own portfolio in addition to providing leadership and direction to a team of lenders and support staff, to ensure success of the team's goals to develop Spring Garden's market presence to win new clients and grow market share. The ideal candidate for this role will have an extensive network of small and midsize real estate developers and investors as well as related Centers of Influence like attorneys, title agents, and contractors. In addition, the candidate should have a wide-ranging knowledge of the region's real estate submarkets and a strong command of real estate credit fundamentals.

WHAT YOU WILL DO:
1. Establish and maintain Spring Garden market presence to win new clients and grow market share.
2. Uses network of referral sources, social media outreach, and other business development approaches to identify new clients and build awareness of the Company's capabilities in the marketplace.
3. Actively seeks to develop new customer relationships with builders and developers through networking and client calls in order to source, solicit and sell commercial real estate and construction loans. Maintains awareness of both the external and internal competitive landscape, opportunities for expansion, customers, markets, and new industry developments and standards.
4. Provide leadership and direction to a team of lenders to ensure success of the team's goals and objectives and drives an accountable, high performing sales culture. Allocates resources and assignments to maximize market opportunity.
5. Attracts, develops and retains team members that are committed to achieving results for the Company and for the clients.
6. Drives the commercial real estate and construction loan portfolio revenue growth objectives by identifying and executing on lending, deposit, and fee opportunities with current and prospective customers.
7. Drives new business development, portfolio management, credit quality, and overall relationship management of an assigned/developed portfolio of commercial real estate and construction customers.
8. Manage and develop commercial real estate and construction accounts that meet the Company's lending requirements and maximize profitability while minimizing risk.
9. Leverage knowledge of existing customer base to maximize opportunities to cross-sell services, and maintains a knowledge of products and services as well as knowledge of competitors and competitive products.
10. Manages larger, more complex loan relationships.
11. Review commercial real estate and construction opportunities to ensure consistency with structure, terms and pricing.
12. Perform quality underwriting of loan proposals, including ordering and reviewing appraisals, analyzing development budgets, and conducting project and borrower-level financial analysis.
13. Manage loan closings, the servicing of loans, and draws and payoffs, in accordance with loan terms.
14. Provide support in development of credit analysts and other company personnel when appropriate.
15. Actively participates in community organizations in a leadership capacity.
16. Ensure compliance with all Federal and State regulations.

WHAT WE EXPECT OF YOU:
* Extensive sales, negotiation, relationship management, and presentation skills. Experience in managing large, sophisticated, complex commercial real estate and/or investment relationships.
* Demonstrated credit evaluation ability with proven success making credit/underwriting assessments on complex credits with an emphasis on commercial real estate and/or investment lending. Ability to analyze loans with complex covenant structures.
* Demonstrated business development acumen, with a track record of winning client business and maintaining strong client relationships.
* Thorough knowledge and understanding of commercial real estate lending policies & processes and the banking regulations and laws governing commercial real estate lending.
* Solid analytical skills, including business case analysis.
* Skilled at critical financial analysis.
* Thorough knowledge and understanding of commercial lending, including qualifying applicants, packaging proposals, underwriting credit and cash flow and loan closing.
* Possesses strong interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills, evidenced both internally and externally; expertise in interfacing with multiple departments and personnel at various levels.
* Experience in managing large, sophisticated and complex relationships.
* Solid knowledge of assigned market.
* Proven ability in providing leadership to lending professionals.
* Computer literacy in MS Office.
* Ability to be available as needed for company related events and duties outside work hours.

YOUR QUALIFICATIONS:
* Bachelor's degree with an emphasis in Business, Finance, Accounting or related field.
* Minimum of 7-10 years in commercial lending, including extensive credit analysis and relationship management including demonstrated success in commercial real estate lending.
* Demonstrated leadership/management success in a commercial lending environment.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONTACTS:
* Extensive external customer, investors, vendors, regulatory authorities, prospect and referral source contacts.
* Internally this position requires regular contact with various departments within all divisions of the Company, including management.

WORKING CONDITIONS/PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:
Office environment. Ability to operate computer. Ability to communicate in order to exchange simple to complex information with individuals and groups. Ability to travel throughout company footprint.