Wintrust Commercial Finance (WCF) announced that Stephen C. Cusick has joined the company’s capital markets group, as senior vice president. Cusick will be located in WCF’s Los Angeles office and will focus on indirect originations. He joins a national team led by WCF Senior Vice President Tom Forbes who heads up the capital markets group.

“Wintrust Commercial Finance is truly excited to bring Steve’s depth and variety of experience to our business,” said Forbes.  “Steve is an industry veteran with tremendous capital markets expertise in a range of industries, including aircraft, transportation, marine, energy and electronics.”

WCF also announced that, with the help of the expanded WCF team throughout the past year, it has added $220MM of assets since its inception in April 2015.

“2015 was truly a remarkable year for Wintrust Commercial Finance,” said WCF President and CEO Kirk Phillips. “We were able to successfully launch the business early in the year, hire a solid core team, and execute on over $220 million in profitable asset generation for the company.  We are excited about what we are building here at Wintrust and adding solid new members like Steve to the mix will help us to continue to meet our goals in the future.”

Cusick brings 30 years of experience to WCF.  Before joining the company, he held the role of vice president at Capital One Equipment Finance and, immediately prior to that, senior vice president - corporate finance for GE Capital Corporation’s Capital Markets Group. 

Wintrust Commercial Finance also announced that John Benoit has joined the company’s direct originations group, as vice president – business development. Benoit will be located in WCF’s South Louisiana office, focusing on direct originations in the gulf coast region and will join the national team led by Executive Vice President and COO Joe Thompson.

“Wintrust Commercial Finance is truly excited to bring John’s depth and variety of experience to our business,” said Thompson. “The build out of our direct platform is the next step in our growth and having worked with John twice previously, I know he will do a great job in helping us build on our momentum from 2015.” 

Benoit brings 17 years of commercial finance experience to WCF. Before joining the team, he was vice president – business development at Regions Equipment Finance.