Brad Donaldson

Chief Financial Officer, Commercial Real Estate Debt

Brad Donaldson is the Chief Financial Officer for the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Lending Business at Amherst Capital Management.  In this role, Brad is responsible for overseeing the accounting and finance platform as well as leading the underwriting of all new originations and managing the closing and diligence process.

Prior to joining Amherst Capital, Brad was a SVP, Originations at CapitalSource, a Division of Pacific Western Bank.  In this role he was responsible for underwriting and managing the closing process for middle market real estate bridge loans.  Brad joined CapitalSource in 2002 in the Commercial Real Estate Portfolio Management group and he was responsible for managing this group from 2006 – 2013.

 Prior to joining CapitalSource, Brad was part of the Treasury and Accounting group at Mills Corporation, a regional mall REIT.  Brad began his career with local accounting firms focused on serving real estate developers. 

Brad holds an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, and a BS in accounting from Radford University.   

Banu Roso

Chief Operating Officer

Banu Roso is a Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer at Amherst Capital and is a member of the Executive Committee. In this role, Banu works closely with the CEO and other senior leaders in day-to-day management of the business, including financial / strategic planning and oversight of operations and business administration.

Prior to joining Amherst Capital, Banu spent 16 years at UBS, where she held leadership roles in sales management for UBS Asset Management Distribution in the Americas, generated new business through cross-divisional collaboration as part of UBS Business Development Group, and provided M&A advisory and financing services to consumer products clients in UBS Investment Bank. Banu started her career in management consulting as an Analyst at the Brattle Group and subsequently as a Consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

Banu holds an MBA in Finance from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, MA in International Management from the Lauder Institute with a concentration in European Studies and German Language, and BA in Economics and German Studies from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts.

Gillian Cho

Chief Operating Officer, Investment Management

Gillian Sutton Cho is the Chief Operating Officer of Investment Management. In this role, Gillian is responsible for all investor-facing services and operations, and for growing assets under management for all Amherst strategies. In addition, she works with the investment banking, mortgage banking, portfolio management, asset management, and research teams to deliver the Amherst platform effectively as the business grows and diversifies.

Prior to her role at Amherst, Gillian was the Chief Operating Officer of Crow Holdings where she was responsible for building the corporate infrastructure to facilitate growth, driving operational effectiveness and efficiencies, and engaging in business development and capital raising activities.

Gillian spent the decade prior to that engaged in multi-family and mixed-use development in the Bay Area at Trammell Crow Residential and in New York at Extell Development Company. Gillian started her career at Bain & Company in their London and New York offices advising clients in the US, UK, and continental Europe on corporate strategy, organization, and operations.
Gillian obtained her bachelor’s degree from the University of Oxford and her MBA from Harvard Business School.

Todd Lawrence

Chief Technology Officer

Todd Lawrence is the Chief Technology Officer at Amherst. In this role, Todd works with stakeholders to develop innovative technology solutions that drive efficiency and optimize results for the Amherst business units. Todd brings two decades of expertise in IT infrastructure and software development to the organization, combining his technical acumen with a strategic, forward-looking mindset to address complex technology challenges.

Prior to this role, Todd served as SVP of Emerging Technologies for Amherst InsightLabs, CTO for Main Street Renewal and more recently, interim CTO for Bungalo Homes and has been with Amherst for over 18 years and held roles in network engineering, database design and administration, application development, development operations and infrastructure.