A Lender that Shares Your Vision

The Encore team is composed of industry veterans who are here to support your business for years to come.

Building Long-Term Partnerships Focused on Growth

When you work with Encore Finance, you’re working with a team that brings an unbeatable track record of experience, integrity, and trust. Our main focus is on building long-term relationships with our borrowers and helping them grow their businesses over the coming years and decades. Where other lenders may see your loan as a transaction to add to their balance sheet, we see each and every loan as an opportunity to help your business grow and to strengthen our partnership through trust and flawless execution.

Being a true partner also means that we stand by our borrowers through thick and thin. Even when the lending environment is murky, we will work with you to figure out a viable financing solution that works for both parties. With Encore on your side, you will have a partner that you can count on to help you find the lending solutions you need to take your business as far as you want to go.

Meet the
Encore Leadership

A woman with glasses and pearls smiling for the camera.

Elizabeth (Beth) O’Brien

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Elizabeth (Beth) O’Brien has over 30 years of experience in almost every aspect of the mortgage industry, as both a principal and an advisor. She has overseen more than $20 billion in transactions and was named in Housing Wire’s 2014 Women of Influence and 2018 Women of Influence, as well as Mortgage Professionals America’s 2016 and 2017 Elite Women in Mortgage and 2016 GlobeSt.com Real Estate Forum Women of Influence.

Beth previously founded Colony American Finance (now CoreVest), serving as CEO and growing the company into the nation’s premier private real estate lender. Before that, Beth was Executive Vice President at Auction.com, where she ran residential capital markets, and was President and Co-Founder of AuctionFinance.com, where she ran the financing strategy for the platform in addition to the private lender.

Beth also held prior positions in RMBS trading and securitization at Citigroup and in Real Estate Private Equity at Goldman Sachs. Beth holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University Law Center.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-o-brien-61018011/

Brad Chmura

Chief Operating Officer

Brad Chmura is a highly accomplished, recognized leader in sales and operations who has worked in leadership positions within the mortgage and real estate investment industries since 2000. Brad has a long track record of driving revenue, exceeding goals and motivating internal stakeholders and business partners. He also brings extensive knowledge in innovative technology, with an established history of promoting sustainable growth, data integrity and operational efficiency through the application of appropriate technological advancements.

Prior to joining Encore, Brad held leadership positions at several mortgage lending and real estate investment companies, including CoreVest, First American Mortgage Solutions, ClosingCorp and CoreLogic. Brad holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradchmura/

Lawrence (Larry) Schimer

Chief Financial Officer

Lawrence (Larry) Schimer has over 20 years of capital markets experience with a focus on residential and commercial real estate and mortgage markets. Prior to joining Encore Mr. Schimer spent 16 years at Fortress Investments where he was a Managing Director. His area of focus at Fortress was investments in the residential and commercial real estate sectors. His responsibilities included platform and asset acquisitions, as well as financing across a broad spectrum of real estate related product types and businesses.

His experience includes acquisitions of existing mortgage companies as well as ground up development of origination platforms. These investments involved a variety of structures across the capital stack from common equity to structured debt. Prior to joining Fortress Mr. Schimer worked at Credit Suisse in the residential mortgage conduit. Mr. Schimer’s responsibilities at Encore include all financial aspects of the business including; capital markets, capital sourcing and the company’s financial reporting and management. Mr. Schimer holds a BA in Economics from Brandeis University and an MBA in Finance from the Yale School of Management.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-schimer-b15126b/

Boris Zhuravel

Chief Revenue Officer

Boris Zhuravel has over 20 years of real estate experience and serves as Encore’s Chief Revenue Officer. Mr. Zhuravel is responsible for loan structuring and origination as well as sales and product development.

Prior to joining Encore Mr. Zhuravel held senior loan origination positions at several institutional lenders where he closed over $3 billion of construction, bridge and permanent debt as well as numerous mezzanine debt and preferred equity investments.

In addition, Mr. Zhuravel held senior positions at Ten-X where he built the US capital markets desk and Ten-X’s European business. Mr. Zhuravel started his career in the CMBS group at Credit Suisse and worked in the CMBS groups at CIBC and Deutsche Bank. Mr. Zhuravel holds a BA in Economics from Haverford College and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/boris-zhuravel-8aa853/

A man in a suit is standing in front of a dark background.

John Prins

Chief Client Officer

John Prins has over 10 years of real estate experience and serves as Encore’s Chief Client Officer. Prior to joining Encore, John held senior loan originations positions with other private lenders specializing in SFR and multifamily assets, where he closed over $2.5 billion of permanent, bridge and construction debt across over 400 transactions. John holds a BS in Hotel Administration from Cornell University.

https://www.encorefinance.com/