Danielle Katz

Managing Underwriter, Senior Director, Capital One

Biography:

Danielle Katz has over 18 years of corporate finance experience across a broad base of roles, products, and disciplines including underwriting, structuring, syndicating, and managing a portfolio of senior and subordinated loans to small, middle, and large market sponsor and nonsponsor backed companies. Danielle has significant experience as an industry generalist across multiple industries as well as strong healthcare domain expertise across multiple sectors. Danielle began her career in Investment Banking with focus on Mergers and Acquisitions (primarily sell side advisory services) and made the move to Leveraged Lending in 2003 where she held various roles at Merrill Lynch Capital, GE Antares Capital, GE Capital’s Healthcare Financial Services business, and Capital One. Experience includes agented transactions, participations, and secondary market purchases. Danielle is currently a managing underwriter (senior vice president) on the Middle Market Bank – Diversified Industries team where she leads a team of seven credit professionals tasked with underwriting new first and second lien transactions, participations and ongoing portfolio management for sponsored and direct middle and large market cash flow transactions across a broad range of industries. Danielle currently manages a portfolio of over 45 transactions accounting for $2.5B of assets.

What advice would you offer to women just starting out in the industry?

Build the brand you want to be known for. Every day we are leaving behind an impression. The lending community is small and first impressions last, so make sure you are proud of the reputation you are building. Put your best foot forward every day, work hard but efficient, and always put forth a work product you are proud to put your name on the cover of. You can never beat yourself up if you know that you gave it your all. Also, know that it is ok to say no sometimes! It is always better to do a couple of things really good than to do many things poorly.

What do you know now that you wish you knew in the beginning of your career?

I wish I knew that everything would work out in the end. Throughout my career I have hit bumps in the road and experienced setbacks. Do not waste too much energy getting worked up over things that don’t go your way or those that you cannot control; instead channel that energy into working harder and proving your capabilities. It is easy to get caught up in feeling sorry for yourself when these things happen, but don’t! Each of these experiences has always been a learning opportunity in disguise and caused me to work harder and do better. These roadblocks are a time for reflection and a chance to reset your path.

What kind of role has mentoring and/or sponsorship played in your career?

Mentoring has always played a large role in my professional development; however, I have found that the mentor- ships that happen naturally, as opposed to being part of a forced program, have been most successful. I have been very fortunate to have many mentors in my career, both men and women, all of whom have offered different perspectives and advice to help me grow my career. A large part of my success has been the result of my champions, those that have been willing to stick their necks out for me, to help me gain access to new opportunities and growth roles. As mentoring has been critical to my success, I enjoy paying it forward and helping junior team members learn and grow. Nothing makes me happier than to see those that I have spent time teaching and developing succeed.

What do you think the industry could do to attract and retain the best and the brightest today?

I think it is hard in this day and age to recruit strong female talent into the finance world, especially given the number of new professions where more women are prevalent. With all the new professions, careers with better perceived work life balance, and lack of women at the top, it is easy to see why women would choose a different path. That is why it is so critical for us to find the women still interested in a career in finance and invest in their learning and development. We need to listen to what women want and be willing to change historic industry norms to attract and keep these women. It is a challenge to retain women, especially those that want a family, as many women “drop out” of the field, given the long work hours and demanding nature of the job while trying to raise a family. We need to better adapt to making it easier for women to have a career and family, by offering paid maternity leave and more flexible/work- from-home hours.