The Management Team
John Priest
Chief Executive Officer
Prior to joining Equable Ascent Financial, John had been with the Cerberus Operations and Advisory Company, a unit of Cerberus Capital Management. His financial industry experience encompasses domestic as well as international financial services. Before joining Cerberus, John served in a variety of consumer finance companies, primarily in the roles of Chief Credit Officer and Head of Marketing Analytics. He has substantial experience in the subprime and middle market segments, having worked in various roles for Providian Financial. After starting Providian Bank in Argentina, John served as the Chief Credit Officer and Head of Marketing and Database Analytics for African Bank in South Africa, which provides a wide variety of consumer loans to the middle market and micro-finance segments.
In addition, John has significant M&A and co-brand experience from deals ranging over five different continents. Other roles in consumer finance include serving as Senior Vice President at Kessler Financial Services Investment Banking Group and various roles at MBNA America.
John resigned his commission as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy. He has a degree in economics with a naval science minor from Miami University.
Bill Kolz
Chief Operating Officer
Bill was promoted to COO of Equable Ascent Financial in early 2009 after successfully opening Apex Financial Management, LLC, a subsidiary company of EAF, and serving as its President since 2004.
Bill oversaw all aspects of the consumer and commercial divisions of Apex Financial. Through his vision and leadership, he developed a proprietary in-house scoring model, designed innovative repayment solution programs, incorporated state of the art technology, and built strategic alliances with industry leaders. Apex Financial was recently named as one of the Best Places to Work in Collections by insideARM.com and Best Companies Group.
Bill brings more than 17 years of experience in credit collections and debt purchasing. Prior to joining Apex Financial in 2004, he served in executive roles at The CBE Group and Van Ru Credit Corporation. Through his innovation and experience, he triggered the growth and expansion of his past employers by managing 1,000 employees and became an industry pioneer by introducing diversified portfolios, collection workflows and activity, rigorous training and compliance programs and collection software system conversions.
Ryan Kasten
Chief Financial Officer
Ryan joined Equable Ascent Financial in January 2002 as the Director of Finance and was promoted to the VP of Finance during 2003 as a result of the success and growth of the Company. Before joining EAF, he was an Accounting Manager for Eastman Chemical (formerly McWhorter Technologies), primarily responsible for internal and external (SEC) reporting as well as all treasury functions. Prior to Eastman, he worked for two Chicago Retailers handling various accounting, financial management and corporate finance duties.
During his career, Ryan has also gained extensive knowledge of cash management, internal control and corporate compliance enforcement and human resource management across manufacturing, retail and financial service sectors. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a MBA in Finance from DePaul University.
Mike Walsh
General Counsel
Prior to joining Equable Ascent Financial, Mike was an associate attorney with the law firm of Richards, Ralph & Schwab where his practice concentrated on representation of banks, mortgage lenders, and mortgage servicers in consumer lending, mortgage foreclosure and bankruptcy cases. Previous to his time with Richards, Ralph & Schwab, Mike served as senior counsel at Fisher and Shapiro where he managed the law firm’s litigation department. He has also worked as associate general counsel for Fidelity National Title and as associate general counsel for LOGS Financial Services, LLC.
Mike graduated from the University of Kentucky and earned his law degree from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He also earned an M.A. in Political Science from Loyola University-Chicago where he is an adjunct professor in the Political Science Department and coach of Loyola’s Mock Trial Teams.
Steve Thorne
Chief Information Officer
Throughout his career, Steve has gained extensive IT experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Equable Ascent Financial, Steve was with MortgageServ, a software development subsidiary of FiServ, Inc. where he was responsible for managing conversion projects for loan origination software at client sites across the US. As Senior Vice President of Abacus Financial Management Services, Steve oversaw the IT department supporting risk management agencies, over a wide range of accounts receivables sectors.
Steve has also served several companies in the mortgage banking and commercial lending industries as Software Development Manager for a variety of applications, including installment loans, secondary marketing management, mortgage loan origination and mortgage loan servicing with a specialty in foreclosure and delinquency management. Steve has a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Detroit College of Business.
Bill Colwell
Vice President of Analytics
With 30 years of experience building strong analytical teams and optimizing business operations, Bill brings strong leadership to EAF valuation and collection strategy. Prior to joining EAF, at Ford Credit, Bill managed quantitative collections and directed credit risk teams supporting finance, underwriting, and marketing. At Case New Holland 's CNH Capital, Bill built the risk analytics team and provided credit scoring, risk-based pricing, loss forecasting, and collections tools for its global retail platform.
Bill earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from Western Illinois University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.