Name: Phillip Kudla
SPG Career: Vice President, Credit Review
Personal Challenge: Managing numerous hobbies and interests

Cultivates Challenge

Phillip Kudla enjoys a challenge. With an undergraduate degree in philosophy, an MBA from Columbia Business School and a career in the financial world, Mr. Kudla seeks diversity in both his work life and personal life. Although he has spent much of his career as a credit analyst, he has applied his skills to small business, middle market, large corporate and international credits. He was recently appointed to a position as Vice President in credit review at an international bank.

A Banker's Register recruiter recognized Mr. Kudla's desire for professional challenge and encouraged him to wait for an opportunity that met his goals. "I was between jobs when I met Ira and there was an urgency to return to work," says Mr. Kudla. "Ira really supported me throughout the process and wanted me to make a nice career step rather than just accept a lateral move." Mr. Kudla is pleased with the result. The new position in credit review lets him apply his skill set in some new ways. "The way Ira handled himself was first rate," he says. "It's been a very satisfying experience."

Outside the office, Mr. Kudla pursues numerous interests, many of them centered on growing heirloom and exotic organic vegetables. "We bought 71 acres of farm land not long ago and hope to do some small scale farming there." He hopes someday to build a house and barns using traditional hand tools and some Japanese timber framing techniques. His interest in organic farming developed out of a love for cooking. He discovered that stores don’t carry the proper ingredients for many of his culinary projects. "I started out with a small home garden but liked the work enough that it grew into this larger project." He and his family now grow heirloom tomatoes and exotic vegetables such as mizuna, diakon radishes and bok choi. "We are not organic purists," says Mr. Kudla. "For us it is therapeutic to work outdoors and satisfying to eat something we worked to grow. We enjoy offering that to our children and our friends. A central part of our life is having great food on the table."

As a gardener, Mr. Kudla seeks to understand the soil, match the soil structure to the types of vegetables he grows and maximize his yields. His mission in credit review often resembles these objectives. "We need to understand the industry that each credit is operating in and check that the deal structure matches the risks. We are also involved in assigning a risk rating to each credit so that the yield can be risk adjusted and the proper reserves set." He likes having the chance to look at the quality of the corporate loan portfolio as a whole. "In previous jobs, we were always in a rush to get a deal done," he states. "There is more intellectual content to my new position. We're here to think carefully about the quality of credit. My work begins to edge into financial risk management which is very interesting to me."

"Thanks to my recruiter and The Bankers Register, I found a very challenging new job. And the commute to New York City from farm country gives me time on the train to review the newest seed catalogues or read philosophy."