TEAM BIOS
EXPERIANCE THAT MATTERS
Center Street Finance's Executive Team have decades of individual and combined experiance in all aspects of the auto finance business. We have a proven track record of success in both past and current projects. No one person or company can boast more experiance or knowledge than that of CFS.
STEVE BURKE
President & CEO
Steve Burke is the President and Chief Executive Officer, co-founder and partner of Center Street Finance, LP. Steve has been in the retail auto and auto finance industry for 30 years. Steve started his career as an owner and operator of one of the largest Buy-Here-Pay-Here dealerships in Texas. Steve exited the BHPH industry in 1991, and was the co-founder and EVP/Chief Operating Officer of One Hour Acceptance (“OHA”). OHA was an indirect auto lender and financed its business by securitizing pools of sub-prime auto loans. Steve was responsible for collections, sales and marketing, credit, remarketing and the strategic direction of OHA.
In 1995 Steve sold his ownership interest in OHA and joined FSB Financial as the Chief Executive Officer and partner. FSB Financial was a subsidiary of Southwest Securities Bank. FSB was a purchaser of BHPH through Super Prime auto loans in bulk and to a lesser extent FSB had indirect programs, flow programs and third party servicing. As the CEO, Steve was responsible for balance sheet management, operations, regulatory functions, loan policy, servicing policy, capital adequacy policy and internal and external exams, as well as the strategic direction of the company.
In 2006, BB&T Corporation subsidiary Regional Acceptance purchased the assets of FSB Financial and Steve was placed under a long term contract. Steve joined Regional as SVP, Manager of Portfolio Acquisitions and a member of the board. Steve led a team that acquired over $2 billion in subprime to super prime auto loans for both Regional and BB&T and was responsible for the strategic planning of the Portfolio Acquisitions Group, Steve also launched, staffed and set strategy for the 250 seat BB&T call center located in Arlington, Texas..
In 2011, Steve left BB&T/RAC to join SFG Finance as the CEO. SFG is a wholly owned subsidiary of a publically traded Texas bank. SFG is an acquirer of BHPH and subprime auto loans nationally from car dealers, banks, credit unions and finance companies. In all, Steve has led teams and companies that have purchased well over $5 billion in auto loans. Steve is a co-founder and past board member of the NAF Association.
steve.burke@centerstreetfinance.com | office 682-777-2003
CHRISTOPHER HAWKE
SVP Capital Markets
Chris joined Center Street Finance in 2015 as Partner and Senior Vice President for Capital Markets. At Center Street, Chris oversees the firm’s capital markets and business development efforts working with larger financial institutions including broker dealers, commercial banks, private equity funds, hedge funds and other private investors.
Prior to joining Center Street, Chris was a partner and co-founder of Trinity Resource Partners – a specialized advisory and consulting firm assisting companies in a variety of sectors with business development, strategy and access to capital. From 2009 to 2013, Chris was a Managing Director with FG Companies - a boutique broker dealer providing investment banking services in the consumer finance, commercial finance and specialty finance sectors. Before FG Companies, Chris worked as a Principal in Bank of America’s Asset Securitization & Principal Investing Group. At BofA, Chris co-headed a team responsible for originating and executing underwriting mandates for asset-backed securitizations and proprietary investments on behalf of the firm across a wide spectrum of commercial finance, consumer finance and esoteric asset classes.
Chris began his investment banking career at Citigroup in the Asset-Backed Finance Group completing numerous public and private underwriting mandates for term securitizations, warehouse lines, residual financing facilities and other credit facilities and then in the Principal Finance Group focusing on purchases of consumer finance and commercial finance loan portfolios and other special situation proprietary investment opportunities. Before investment banking, Chris practiced as an attorney at Thacher Proffitt & Wood where he represented underwriters, issuers, rating agencies, investors and lenders in securitizations, structured financings and assorted other corporate finance matters.
Chris holds Series 24, 7 & 63 licenses from FINRA. Chris earned a BA in Political Science from Amherst College as well as a JD from Fordham University School of Law.
chris.hawke@centerstreetfinance.com | office 682-777-2005
DANIEL BURKE
SVP Risk Management
Daniel Burke is the Senior Vice President of Risk Management at Center Street Finance. At Center Street, Daniel leads the analytics team that has developed several diligence applications to stream-line CSF’s review processes. In addition, he has developed Center Street Finance’s risk management and financial modelling architecture. He has 12+ years of experience in auto finance, from working at finance companies such as FSB Financial, Regional Acceptance and SFG Finance.
Daniel studied Finance and Entrepreneurial Management and earned his degree from Texas Christian University, where he took part in the Educational Investment Fund. The EIF program was a purely student-run investment pool, and Daniel served as its Chief Financial Sector Analyst, specializing in commercial and investment banks.
Throughout his career, Daniel has developed extensive modeling and development skills, making use of his knowledge of business applications and large array of programming languages such as VBA, C++, Java, SQL, PHP, and more. Daniel has a deep understanding of both the auto finance industry and the technology needed to create a robust reporting and analytics environment.
Jessica is the VP of Risk Management at Center Street Finance. Jessica has been in the auto industry for 9 years, and has held many positions throughout the industry gaining a vast knowledge of operations.
Jessica began as a dialer representative at Nuvell Financial in 2007. She quickly moved from a dialer representative to a backend collector. Her experience ranges from working accounts that are 0 days past due to 90 days past due, to include skip tracing techniques.
In 2009, Jessica started with SFG Finance as a Loan Servicing Representative working multiple portfolios to prevent loss while maintaining dealer relationships. Upon receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Management at the University of Texas at Arlington in 2011 she moved into an analyst position. She quickly moved from a Business Analyst to a Senior Business Analyst.
As a Senior Business Analyst Jessica strived to streamline and improve processes. She gained experience in portfolio pricing, acquisitions, and analysis. As part of the Risk Management team she strategized with executive management on projects and assisted with implementation. Jessica’s other duties included auditing accounts, trend analysis, and month-end reporting.
Jessica is currently pursuing a Master of Business Administration at Texas Women’s University.
JESSICA ALLEN
VP Risk Management
MATT BURKE
VP Portfolio Aquisitions
Matt Burke is the VP of Portfolio Acquisitions at Center Street Finance. Matt has owned and managed several businesses, which has allowed him to develop leadership, networking, and client relations skills vital to business development.
Matt graduated from Texas Christian University with a double major in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management with an emphasis in Leadership. Matt's business development experience comes from working for companies like SFG Finance, Cowtown Angels, TCU Game Day, and Parks Production Company, all of which give him a unique and innovative approach to building relationships in business.
Matt has a goal to provide services or products in a personal fashion that is unique and beneficial to the clients as well as the company. A philosophy reflected throughout all of his business ventures is a passion for excellence by either doing things the right way or not at all. Matt believes, “by striving to achieve this high standard of excellence our team will be able to overcome and achieve greater accomplishments than done otherwise making a good team great and a great team excellent.”
BOBBY AUTREY
VP Portfolio Management
Bobby Autrey is the Vice President of Portfolio Management at Center Street Finance. With over 30 years’ experience in the retail auto and auto finance industry, Bobby has worked in nearly every aspect of the business including sales, credit and loan servicing. Additionally, Bob has an extensive background in Information Technology and recently served as the Vice President of IT, then as Chief Information Officer of SFG.
Bobby started his career in the Buy-Here-Pay-Here industry as a credit and F&I specialist. In 1991 he became the Senior Credit Manager of One Hour Acceptance responsible for the purchase of millions of dollars of indirect, sub-prime auto paper. In 1995 he left OHA to help start FSB Financial and served as the VP of Credit and Collections. FSB Financial started off as primarily and indirect lender but quickly transitioned into bulk acquisitions. Bobby has lead several sub-prime buys from banks, credit unions, and captive finance companies nationwide. In his Loan Servicing role, Bobby was responsible for the in house management of the loan portfolios as well as establishing successful-collector profiles, hiring, onboarding and training, managing, measuring success, and creating incentives for loan servicing reps.
In 2007, Bob joined SFG Finance serving as the VP of Credit and IT and worked on building both the IT infrastructure and loan portfolio until 2011 when he became SFG’s Chief Information Officer until leaving to join Center Street Finance in August of 2014.
