Carmen Panacopoulos
Title: Vice President, Client Manager, Commercial Term Lending, Chase Bank
Age: 43
Experience: 22 years
When the Brooklyn-born Carmen Panacopoulos returned to the United States with her parents at the age of 10 after living in the Dominican Republic, she’d lost most of her ability to speak English, but she excelled at math. Not one to be put off by a challenge and ever-aware that her younger siblings would be watching her model the way, Panacopoulos quickly overtook her peers, mastered English (and later French), worked a stint at MassHousing and earned an MBA before being scooped up by Citizens Bank. Now a vice president in the commercial term lending group at JPMorgan Chase, Panacopoulos sat down with Banker & Tradesman to talk about affordable housing, the value of volunteering and the importance of paying it forward.
Q: You have a pretty strong background in affordable housing. What sparked your interest in that?
A: Immediately after college, I started at MassHousing and the executive director was one of my mentors along the way. He wanted to see me through, and he wanted me to excel, and they eventually sent me to MIT to the Center for Real Estate. My boss at the time had gone to divinity school at Harvard, so he was in real estate and affordable housing, but he was also a pastor. He would say, “Yes we’re doing this deal, but don’t forget who it’s going to benefit. Look at the surrounding community.”
I also think of my mom immigrating here, coming to the United States and coming to Massachusetts with four kids, all under the age of 10. I feel that throughout my career, I’ve always been able to keep that in the back of my mind.
When I went to Citizens Bank, a lot of the deals I was doing had a component of affordable housing and that was one of my areas of expertise. My biggest deal was $23 million and it was 100 units of affordable housing in Lakeville.
You need affordable housing to stabilize the community. Good schools are great, but everything begins with having a stable home, and I’m extremely passionate about seeing that change for the better.
Q: Can you tell me about some of the other organizations you’ve been involved with outside of your work?
A: Previously, I was with the MassHousing Investment Corp., which provides syndicated dollars to create affordable housing, and I was on the investment committee for that for almost eight years.
I have been on the board of the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corp., formerly the CDFC. I was appointed by the Romney administration in 2005. That organization was merged into another one, and I was the only surviving member to have made it into the board. I still sit on that board and I’m on their credit committee as well.
I’ve also been involved with the Latino Professional Network and the Hispanic American Chamber Of Commerce. They’re in Boston, right in Jamaica Plain, and they work with small businesses to help them develop the skills to put together business plans and think about growing their businesses.
I’m also very passionate about elderly issues and elderly homelessness, so I’ve worked with Hearth, Inc. They fight elderly homelessness, and I love them.
Q: You’ve placed a strong emphasis on mentoring others. Why is that?
A: Well, right now, I’m a mentor with [the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting]. I’ve been doing that for the past six months. But informally, I’ve always been approached with things like, “Will you get coffee with me?” or “Can you give me advice as to where I am?” so I’ve always made myself available. I’m never too busy to help.
It’s because a lot of what I’ve been able to achieve has been the result of, I can look back and see now, that there was always someone who was readily available to help me out. You need that guidance to move forward.
Top Five Books By Latino Authors:
- In the Time of the Butterflies,” by Julia Alvarez
- “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- “Like Water for Chocolate,” by Laura Esquivel
- “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Diaz
- “The House of Mango Street,” by Sandra Cisneros
