Mr. Sponholtz founded Real Estate Equity Exchange, Inc. (EquityRock’s parent company) and leads the fund management and strategic direction of the firm. Mr. Sponholtz has over 18 years of experience in building large-scale consumer finance securitization and investment management businesses. Prior to founding Real Estate Equity Exchange, Inc., Mr. Sponholtz was a director in Barclay’s Global Investors’ Alternative Investment Group (“BGI”); which manages more than $9 billion in assets. While at BGI, Mr. Sponholtz was responsible for the building of several new investment businesses and funds. Mr. Sponholtz also held various positions in BGI’s $130 billion Fixed Income group, most recently as Head of Fixed Income Strategy and Co-head of Active Fixed Income, including the $28 billion mortgage portfolio. Before joining BGI, Mr. Sponholtz was a senior investment officer at Susquehanna Investment Group responsible for building their Mortgage Derivative Arbitrage Program. Prior to joining Susquehanna Investment Group, Mr. Sponholtz was with Alex Brown and Sons where he led the development and securitization of several “new-to-the-world” large-scale consumer finance products in partnership with European banks; most notably the first issuance and fully developed Collateralized Mortgage Obligation capability in Europe. Mr. Sponholtz holds an Academy Economist degree from Niels Brock’s Academy of International Business in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mr. Riccitelli leads a team responsible for designing, building and managing operations for EquityRock and its affiliates. This includes startup and operation of investment vehicles for the investment management platform, and processing, underwriting, closing, and asset management for the origination platform. Prior to joining the firm in November 2006, Mr. Riccitelli was a managing director at Mortgages Ltd., the largest private commercial real estate lender in Arizona, where he had both operational and capital raising roles. Prior to that, Mr. Riccitelli worked as a director with Nomura Holding America’s commercial real estate origination and securitization business where he had several roles, including project management, financial reporting, and process control. He also spent several years managing Nomura’s venture investing business which specialized in making investments in financial services companies. Earlier in his career Mr. Riccitelli worked at J.M. Hartwell L.P., a money management firm, in both investment analysis and operational roles, and at Thomson Financial’s Pegasus Econometric Group, building trading and back office systems. Mr. Riccitelli received a B.A. and an M.S. in Computer Science from Iona College and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University where he graduated with Beta Gamma Sigma honors. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Niels Johnson has over 20 years experience in investment research specializing in building new-to-the-world strategies and tools for large scale application to developing asset classes. Prior to joining the EquityRock, he was a Research Officer at Barclays Global Investors developing non-traditional sources of alpha across more than $250 billion in active assets under management including the flagship Alpha Tilts funds. Earlier while in BGI’s Advanced Strategies Research Group, Mr. Johnson led the US Fixed Income credit research effort and designed and built Global Fixed Income’s credit investment platform, AlphaCredit. This completely new and highly scalable strategy and portfolio management system now forms the core of BGI’s more than $140 billion in fixed income strategies throughout the world from index products to high yield hedge funds. Prior to joining BGI, Mr. Johnson worked for some of the world’s largest and most innovative players in commercial real estate finance. As a co-founder of Precept he designed their commercial real estate finance underwriting and brokerage platform. At Nomura’s Capital America, then the biggest provider of commercial real estate finance in the U.S., Mr. Johnson developed pricing, trading and risk management strategies for its more than $10 billion portfolio of commercial real estate mortgages, preferred and equity investments, including several multi-billion dollar transactions amid difficult market conditions. He began his career at Merrill Lynch and Barra in fixed income research, analyzing the prepayments, hedging and credit quality of mortgage and asset-backed securities. Mr. Johnson holds a B.S. in mathematics and mathematical economics from Tulane University, an M.B.A. in finance and econometrics and statistics from University of Chicago and is a CFA charterholder and a licensed California real estate broker.

Ms. Lebeuf has over 25 years of leading diverse areas of the mortgage banking world, serving on senior management teams at Morgan Stanley, Old Kent Mortgage Services, American Home Mortgage and Washington Mutual. Prior to joining EquityRock, Ms. Lebeuf was Executive Director, Chief Credit and Compliance Officer for Morgan Stanley, where she led the design for the operational and credit policies for the principal residential conduit. Her primary focus was on purchasing packages of whole loans from mid-tier correspondents for Prime and Alt-A Mortgage loans. In addition Ms. Lebeuf managed the credit policy group, publishing the seller guide for external counterparties, the counterparty risk management group, the quality control department, national underwriting group and the warehouse lending initiative for the mid-tier clients of Morgan Stanley’s residential conduit. Ms. Lebeuf has served as Sr. Vice President, Chief Credit Officer for Old Kent Mortgage, First Vice President, Origination Risk Manager for Washington Mutual Correspondent and WAMU Securities Group, Vice President, National Underwriting, Credit Policy and Investor Relations at GE Capital Mortgage Services and Sr. Vice President Transaction Management, Capital Markets at American Home Mortgage.

Mr. Gallop co-leads investment management and research at EquityRock and its affiliates. Mr. Gallop has over 20 years experience in managing residential real estate investments. He has extensive experience in fixed income trading, management, and technology. Prior to joining EquityRock, Mr. Gallop was a managing director and Head of Residential MBS Trading for Nomura Securities in New York City. In addition to his role as Senior Mortgage Derivative Trader, Mr. Gallop also was the Senior Managing Director of Nomura’s large Residential Mortgage Trading Department. Before joining Nomura, Mr. Gallop was a mortgage securities research specialist at JP Morgan. He worked in a number of offices for JP Morgan including New York; Los Angeles and London, UK. During that time, Mr. Gallop published several articles in the Handbook of Mortgage Backed Securities, the de facto standard textbook for this market. Mr. Gallop also lectured widely on various related subjects. Prior to choosing a career in the financial industry, Mr. Gallop spent five years as an English and Sciences teacher in Connecticut and New York City. Mr. Gallop received separate BA degrees in English and History from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Mr. Gallop also received a Masters degree in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University.

Lisa earned her B.A. at Harvard University and her law degree at Harvard Law School. She began her legal training at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City with a focus on securities, antitrust and mergers & acquisitions, then practiced extensively in California both as a litigator and a transactional attorney in real estate and complex commercial law. She also holds a California real estate broker’s license and has long term experience representing buyers and sellers in residential real estate transactions, as well as in residential real estate investment and development. She is a member of the State Bar of Massachusetts, the National Association of Realtors, the California Association of Realtors, and serves on the Ethics Committee of the Marin Association of Realtors. She has three times received the Wiley W. Manuel Award from the State Bar of California for public service in recognition of her significant pro bono work in landlord-tenant law for Legal Aid of the North Bay.

Paul Holmes has over 30 years of experience in the Financial Services industry. Industry positions included CEO of Mellon Mortgage, President of iOwn.com, COO of EurekaBank, EVP of BancBoston Mortgage and VP at Bank of America. For the last 9 years Mr. Holmes has been an executive-level management consultant to the industry. Consulting clients include, among others, IBM, CIBC, Greater Bay Bank, City National Bank, CMGMI, First Internet Bank of Indiana, EquityRock, nCommand, IMX, and American Savings Bank of Hawaii. He also spent 3 years mid-career as a consultant at KPMG, and while at KPMG he consulted to Wells Fargo Bank, The World Bank, BancBoston Mortgage, The American Bankers Association and others. These positions and consulting engagements have provided Mr. Holmes a broad set of mortgage and commercial banking experiences, encompassing strategy, M&A, profit improvement, loan and product pricing, organizational realignment, human resource management, and management of large complex projects. Mr. Holmes received an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley with double majors in Math and Computer Sciences. He holds an MBA with a Finance specialty from San Jose State University.