Renate LaCroix

In-House Counsel, Utica Leaseco

Biography:

Renate LaCroix, in-house counsel at Utica Leaseco, is an expert on Uniform Commercial Code and in conducting due diligence for asset-based financing transactions secured by real-estate, machinery, and current assets. LaCroix is the most senior member of the Utica Leaseco legal staff with eight years and over 200 transactions worth of experience. LaCroix’s duties include, but are not limited to : corresponding with secured creditors to procure subordination and payoff letters, filing UCC financing statement, and walking each customer carefully through Utica’s due diligence process, all in order to thoroughly assess prospective clients and properly secure all collateral involved in each transaction. LaCroix’s experience and awareness when it comes to due diligence allows Utica Leaseco to deftly maneuver through the many pitfalls associated with hard-asset lending . Renate is the mother of three and is actively involved in charity, specifically Kids Kicking Cancer and Sparky Anderson‘s CATCH.

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

I believe that women really need to connect with and support each other.  Having a rewarding and demanding career can be challenging, considering all of the other roles that women play with regard to having children and managing their households.  Surrounding yourself with other like-minded women can make all of the difference in obtaining personal and professional satisfaction.  It does not matter who these women are, whether they are experienced superiors or your support staff, we can all help each other to obtain the same goals of success.

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

As an attorney, I wish that I had placed more of an emphasis on gaining the knowledge and experience of the financial industry during college and while in law school.  If I had known that this was the industry I was going to end up in, I would have taken different classes in law school and chosen a different undergrad major.

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

My first mentor was an attorney that I met when I had just begun law school.  She was much more experienced than me and, during her career, had come face-to-face with how horrible women were to other women.  She saw firsthand how women would go out of their way to sabotage other women in order to get ahead professionally.  One of the most important lessons that she worked to teach me as I was beginning my career was the importance of supporting each other and lifting other women up, instead of pulling them down.  I am grateful to have found these same qualities in Ryann Whitmore, who is now my mentor and colleague at Utica Leaseco.  She has encountered the same type of negativity from other women and we have the same goals and outlook in supporting each other.  We feel that this helps us to be incredibly efficient and happy and to provide excellent service to our customers. In an industry that is dominated by men, we should be focusing on bringing more women in and supporting them so they want to stay and women will need to play an important part of that by the way we treat each other.

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

In order to retain the best and brightest women, we need to be able to offer a flexible work environment and give them the ability to manage their own time.  We are fortunate that innovations in technology allow us to basically work at any time and from anywhere.   At Utica Leaseco, we have flexible schedules and sometimes keep odd hours in order to accommodate our customers and brokers.  This allows us to meet demands and respond quickly as possible.  Whether it is early in the morning or late at night, women are more than capable of meeting deadlines and getting the work done to close transactions efficiently.