National Private Lenders Conference Makes Waves
The Rebranded Conference Made a Splash in Key Biscayne, Florida
By Carole VanSickle Ellis
Last month, a private-lending industry tradition went through an exciting evolution, making waves at one of the biggest conferences for private lenders in the country. On March 27, 2023, the first Pitbull Conference of 2023 started out with the announcement that new ownership would be renaming and repurposing the 21-year-old event.
The Pitbull conference will move forward as the National Private Lenders Conference, and will continue to have three events yearly, with the second two of 2023 being hosted in Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Austin, Texas, respectively.
Jon Hornik, CEO of the National Private Lenders Conference and a founding member of the National Private Lenders Association (NPLA) as well as its executive director and general counsel, said of the change, “We are moving [the Pitbull Conference] forward with a new name, The National Private Lenders Conference, as of Monday, March 27, 2023. With this change, we hope to attract more institutional participants into this space as well as increasing collaboration and growth among our members and within the industry.”
Amy Kame, who serves as managing director for the National Private Lenders Association (NPLA), said the association is excited to bring its mission of supporting, protecting, and growing the private lending industry to bear in the National Private Lenders Conference. “What we’re trying to do is bring the foundation from NPLA to the conference.”
“This organization is about how to go to the next level,” said NPLA founding member and Advisory Council member, Chip Cummings, CEO at Northwind Financial and the author of nine best-selling books. “I learn every day from this organization. The mindpower here can solve any problem in this industry.”
Cory Nemoto, a principal at KÉCŌ Capital, LLC and NPLA founding member attending the event, added that his company gives much of the credit for its pandemic survival to NPLA education, networking, and communications. KÉCŌ Capital was founded shortly before the advent of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“We would not have made it through without the NPLA,” Nemoto said. “We faced many trials as an industry, and one thing that is consistent is our friends and colleagues in NPLA have been there through it all.”
New Educational Elements and Networking Opportunities
Jeff Tennyson, an NPLA founding member and president and CEO of Lima One, said, “Private lenders have an important, noble purpose of ultimately helping build communities, and we look forward to continuing to work with the National Private Lenders Conference to grow and build our industry, provide new ideas, and bring in the NPLA’s insights, best practices, and legislative ‘heft’ to help put a spotlight on laws that affect private lenders, real estate investors, and the end users of housing.”
The conference featured presentations from John Burns Real Estate Consulting chief demographer Chris Porter and a keynote from Harry Markopolos, the forensic accounting and financial fraud investigator who uncovered evidence of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme as nearly a decade before Madoff was revealed as a fraud. The agenda also featured panel discussions on advancing your lending platform, key indicators to watch in a changing real estate market, and how inflation, interest rates, and global volatility impact the private lending industry. The event also featured multiple exhibit halls and breakout networking opportunities.
The National Private Lenders Conference this March featured a number of new elements, including more than four hours of designated networking time spread across two days. “That way, no one has to feel pressure to skip the education in order to get in the networking,” Hornik explained. “We are so proud to be here, in this space, providing this education and these opportunities for private lenders around the country,” he concluded. “We are meeting in strong markets where we will attract local talent as well as national attendance, and we are excited to bring this mission to the conference and the industry.”
Learn more about the National Private Lenders Conference at NPLAConference.com. If you are interested in joining NPLA, visit NPLAOnline.com.
