Financial Institution Representative

Chief Operating Officer
Popular Bank
New York, NY

Manuel Chinea serves as Chief Operating Officer of Popular Bank, the mainland subsidiary of Popular, Inc, the largest Hispanic Minority Depository Institution in the United States.  He oversees all operations and business activities for Popular in the U.S. Mainland.  Popular Bank is a full-service financial institution that caters to a very diverse consumer, small business, and commercial customer base with branches in the New York, New Jersey, and South Florida markets. 

He has direct management experience in functional disciplines that include marketing, product management, sales, retail banking and business banking during his more than three decades of experience at Popular.  Previously, Manuel served as Popular Bank’s Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Retail Banking Operations. He’s distinguished himself for leading cross-functional teams and driving transformational changes.  

He began his career with Popular at Banco Popular de Puerto Rico where he held several different roles over the course of 11 years. Most of his experience was in the functional disciplines of product management, cash management and small business lending, including oversight of the Bank’s Government Guaranteed Loan Programs.

Throughout his career, Manuel has been a vocal advocate for financial literacy, education, and the importance of supporting the small business community. He has served on multiple not-for-profit boards, and currently serves on the Board of the Hispanic Federation, the nation’s premier Latino nonprofit membership organization. He is based in New York. In 2021, Crains NY recognized Manuel as one of its Notable Hispanic Leaders & Executives.

Expertise in Lending in Native Communities Representative

Founding Chief Executive Officer
Native Agriculture Financial Service
Fayetteville, AR

Janie Simms Hipp, J.D, LL.M. currently serves as the founding CEO of the Native Agriculture Financial Service (NAFS), a nonprofit Other Financing Institution within the Farm Credit system of lending institutions. NAFS focuses on meeting the capital access needs of Native farmers, ranchers, fishers, and forest land operators and their rural communities. 

Prior to leading NAFS, she served as the General Counsel of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was only the fourth woman in the United States and was the first Native woman to serve as General Counsel at USDA since 1905. She previously served Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack during the Obama-Biden administration as a Senior Advisor and was the founding director of the Office of Tribal Relations at USDA. She also previously served as a National Program Leader at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and a senior official within the Risk Management Agency. 

She was the founding CEO of the Native American Agriculture Fund, the nation’s largest philanthropic organization focusing solely on improving Native food and agriculture and was the founder of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Ms. Hipp has almost 40 years of experience in agricultural law, having begun her work during the 1980s farm financial crisis. She is a recognized expert in agricultural law and in the intersection of agricultural law and Indian law. She has been honored by University of Arkansas and Oklahoma City University where she received her LL.M. in agriculture and food law, and her J.D., respectively, and by numerous other organizations for her expertise and leadership. She has also been named to the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame.

She is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and was raised in a small rural town in southeast Oklahoma; her permanent home is in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

CDFI Representative 

Chief Executive Officer em>
Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund 
Baltimore, MD 

Mark Kaufman is the CEO of the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund, a place-based Certified CDFI that supports disinvested neighborhoods in Baltimore City. 

Previously, Mark was most recently Executive Vice President at City First Bank, a Certified CDFI with a 30-year history of providing mission-oriented capital in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, and President of the bank’s non-profit holding company. 

He served as Counselor to the Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Obama Administration with responsibility for domestic finance issues for three years and as Maryland’s Commissioner of Financial Regulation for five years in the wake of the financial crisis. 

In addition to his work in government, Mark has over 15 years of finance experience as an investment banker.  He is a Trustee and Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a board member of the Jacob K Javits Foundation and a member of the Affordable Housing Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta.