Mark Bernier
Founder, Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Bernier has been involved in receivables management, investment banking and consumer finance since the mid 1980’s, focusing on distressed and high-risk situations. His experience includes securitization offerings on a rated and non-rated basis, debt restructurings, consumer debt portfolio and corporate workouts, asset acquisitions and sales as well as various equity and debt structuring transactions.

Mr. Bernier founded Thornton and has been with the Company as its President and Chief Executive Officer since its inception. Since founding the Company, he has directed the investment activities of the firm as well as has fostered the institutional relationships which have funded those activities. Mr. Bernier’s viewpoints on the consumer debt market have been profiled in Thomson Financial Publishing’s –Collections and Credit Risk Magazine; Credit Card Management Magazine; American Banker’s-Asset Sales Report, the Debt Sales Bulletin, Collection Agency Report; Credit Collections News; Collections Agency Report and The Nilson Report. He is a requested industry speaker at various conferences and other functions.

Rich Martinez
Chief Operating Officer

Rich has over 15 years experience in the financial services arena with focus on risk management, operations, and credit cycle management in non-prime lending. In his role at Thornton Rich oversees the global operations for all origination, servicing, and collections activity. Additionally, he oversees the portfolio pricing and risk management teams.

Prior to joining Thornton, Rich served as a Director at HSBC for six years, most recently at HSBC Mortgage ($33 billion portfolio) where he managed the MIS and Operational Analytics groups. Before overseeing the mortgage portfolio for HSBC, he was the Director of Risk Management at HSBC Auto Finance ($9 billion portfolio) where he directly managed the Risk Management staff, which focused on development, portfolio performance monitoring, and evaluation of all risk management functions, strategies and systems. Prior to working at HSBC, Rich worked as a Senior Portfolio Manager at Arcadia Financial.

Rich earned his BS in Finance from Metropolitan State College of Denver and his MBA in Operations and Management from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

Brian Finn
Vice President, Strategy

As the Vice President of Strategy, Brian’s main responsibilities are to work with the executive management team in developing, managing, and aligning strategic projects and communicating with potential transaction participants, clients and investors. Brian has been instrumental in the identification and development of new strategic markets for the Company.

Prior to joining Thornton, Brian worked for Wells Fargo’s Consumer Credit Group in the Institutional Lending Division, where he focused on financial analysis, modeling, and strategy. From 2000 through 2005, Brian was an associate at Lehman Brothers in New York, where he worked in the Fixed Income Division’s Client Strategy and Account Management groups. He began his career at Bloomberg LP, where he was part of the global analytics and sales team.

Brian earned his BBA in Finance and Business Economics from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business.



Steven Carlson
Board of Directors
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Provident Group

Steve Carlson is the Chairman and CEO of the Provident Group, an investment banking advisory and asset management firm headquartered in New York City . The Firm provides corporations throughout the Americas with corporate and structured finance solutions. Provident offers its institutional and family office relationships customized products tailored to their needs. Provident’s asset management subsidiary, Provident Group Asset Management provides fixed income asset management services primarily focused on fund of hedge fund strategies. Provident is a licensed US broker dealer through its subsidiary, Provident International Securities Inc.

Prior to forming Provident in 1998, Steve was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers (1986-1998) where he was the Global Sales Manager of Institutional Client Group (ICG) from 1996 to 1998, Global Business Head in Emerging Markets Fixed Income and Derivatives from 1992 to 1996, Mortgage Backed Securities business from 1986-1992.

Steve graduated with honors with a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland (1982) and a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1984.

Matias Alvarez Fernandez Madero
Board of Directors
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer – MO&PC Collections

Matias Alvarez is the Chairman and CEO of MO&PC Collections, a company he founded in 1996 in Argentina, and subsequently expanded strategically throughout South America to locations including Brazil and Uruguay. He has been on the Board of Directors for Thornton Americas Holdings since they acquired MO&PC in late 2006.

In addition to his experience owning and managing collections companies, Matias has spent much of his professional career as an attorney. Before founding MO&PC, he worked as the Group Head for the Banking and Disputes Department for the law firm Montes de Oca & Pla Cardenas in Buenos Aires. He specializes in different matters of pre-legal negotiations, including mediation and legal execution processes.

Matias received his undergraduate and law degrees from Del Salvador University in Argentina. Additionally, he has instructed courses in commercial law basics, bankruptcy proceedings, commercial paper business organization, and partnerships at the University of Buenos Aires.



Facundo Ferrari Torres
V.P. Operations, Latin America – MO&PC Collections

Facundo is a principal in MO&PC and has over 15 years of consumer finance experience as a department head of Bank Boston and Citibank in Argentina. Currently he manages the day to day operations of the MO&PC companies.

Prior to joining MO&PC in 2000, he was the Director of Credit Initiation, Collections and Asset Recovery for the Retail Banking Division of Bank Boston (Fleet Boston Financial). While with Bank Boston he managed the start-up of the retail auto finance business for the Bank as well as was Indirect Business head of all retail products. Prior to working at Bank Boston Facundo worked at Citibank in their Global Consumer Group.

Facundo earned his degree in Business Administration and Accounting from the School of Economics at the Catholic University of Argentina.