Our Services

?Created in the cloud with Aspose.Words for Cloud. Services Hilltop’s services reflect our employees’ “experience and knowledge sweet spots”.? Any employee of a Hilltop group company will be deployed to a client engagement based on the requirements/needs and the employee’s ability to contribute to the engagement team’s value added solutions.? So each of the services noted below can be provided to any client of a Hilltop company.? ?Click on any of the services listed and it will describe the service and the benefits to our clients: HYPERLINK "" Strategy Consulting Services HYPERLINK "" Risk Management Consulting Services HYPERLINK "" Credit Risk HYPERLINK "" Counterparty Risk HYPERLINK "" Regulatory Risk HYPERLINK "" Contract Compliance Risk HYPERLINK "" Fraud Risk HYPERLINK "" Operational Risk HYPERLINK "" Technology Risk HYPERLINK "" Finance and Accounting Risk HYPERLINK "" Interest Rate/Hedge Risk HYPERLINK "" Other Risks HYPERLINK "" Regulatory Compliance Audits & Pre-exam Readiness Review Services HYPERLINK "" Litigation Support and Expert Consulting Services HYPERLINK "" Fraud Investigations and Forensic Accounting Services HYPERLINK "" Performance Analysis & Process Improvement Consulting Services HYPERLINK "" Organizational Effectiveness & Change Management Consulting Services HYPERLINK "" Finance, Accounting, Reporting, Specialized Audit and Compliance Services HYPERLINK "" Information and Data Technology Consulting Services HYPERLINK "" Mergers, Acquisitions, Due Diligence Consulting ServicesOrganizational Effectiveness, Project & Change Management and Training Consulting Services Hilltop’s primary services in this area are as follows:Organizational EffectivenessHilltop has performed engagements for large and medium sized companies that want to create a sustainable yet dynamic business enterprise that is constantly changing to enable a long-term strong competitive position in changing market conditions.? To design the organization to be effective in such situations, our OE consultants work with our clients to:create a business framework (including policies, processes and disciplines) that withstand and adapt to changing market conditions,take a fresh and objective look at your business, competitive advantages, shortcomings, and opportunities and identify how the company can maximize its strengths while making changes to overcome or lessen the impact of its shortcomings,affirm who your customers are, why they choose to do business with the Company or not,determine what your customers say about your Company,change the customer experience to change what they think about your Company,anticipate and understand market shifts and plan how to prepare to optimize your results,harness your employees’ strengths, motivation, positive attitudes, willingness to change and interest in helping the Company with achieving its goals,validate your recent business results and alignment of priorities, plans, and tactics against your strategy.Essentially, the purpose of an organizational effectiveness assessment is to figure out how to get “everyone rowing in the same direction” to achieve your strategy.? Another benefit of this type of effort is to clarify direction and objectives of the Company, ensure cross functional alignment (all the silos are working together) and informed optimization that drive anizational effectiveness is the “foundation” for the other component of successful change which includes:a clear Strategy to execute,encouraging employees to Engage and get involving,facilitating Change Management to be easy for all to be involved, andDemonstrating that the Customer Experience will improve when the Strategy is Engaged by the Company’s employees, once they are no longer afraid of Change.? Organizational effectiveness engagements need to consider the following:StrategyCustomersGoal alignmentPeopleProductsPoliciesTechnologyService standardsSales effectiveness & workforce productivityMarketing & CommunicationsCultureChange ManagementHilltop’s change management services are different from our competition because we won’t design a new?business process that looks good on paper but is not likely to be implemented given a lack of support by Management and/or staff.? We understand the need to obtain “buy-in” from our client and their employees.? Identifying leaders that will encourage change and assist in the process of designing the change is critical to the success of any project.Program/Project ManagementHilltop’s project management approach is to adopt our client’s methodology (Six Sigma, Lean Sigma, Agile, Waterfall, etc.).? If the client does not have a preference, the team will use one of these methodologies based on the team’s knowledge/experience with the methodology and what type of project is being managed.?? Many of our consultants have or are in process of obtaining their Project Management Professional certification.? The project management tools will also differ based on the client environment, the team’s level of use with a particular tool and the complexity of the project to be tracked.It is not unusual for there to be more than one project that needs to be executed as part of a larger “program” of changes that need to be implemented.? Program Management is also a very familiar effort for the Hilltop teams as most projects are not single dimensional and do require tracking and executing multiple projects that are all co-dependent on each other to make the program successful.? Most of our project/program managers have both the project management skills and experience as well as an industry background – so most of our project/program management is financial services or Federal agency related.TrainingHilltop professionals have extensive training experience in course creation, industry subject matter?content development, and instructional delivery (either training participants or “training the trainer”). ?Internal and external courses have been designed and delivered.?? We have helped instruct numerous industry and topical courses in the operations and finance arena.?? Some examples of our training qualifications include:training bank examiners on the audit risks of mortgage lending and servicing businesses (for FFIEC)instructing secondary market sessions for the MBA’s School of Mortgage Bankinginstructing accounting sessions for the MBA’s School of Mortgage Bankinginstructing accounting, audit and consulting sessions for KPMG and BearingPoint on a regular basis from 1987 to 2005conducting client seminars on credit riskconducting client strategy sessionsinstructing Financial Analysis courses at Georgetown Universityinstructing Corporate Finance courses at Georgetown Universitycreating and instructing many other courses for clients.Hilltop has created and delivered very detailed and customized courses which reflect the way our clients do business and/or delivered “off the shelf” content.? Our customized courses can also be used as “operational handbooks” or guides of how our Client wants the process to work.? Examples of our operations-oriented courses that we have often customized to our client’s needs include:Loan officer training – the loan officer’s role, job expectations, regulatory knowledge requirements, etc.Loan Processor boot camp – what the processing efforts are and expectations for performanceLoan Underwriter boot camp –? what the processing efforts are and expectations for performanceLoan Closer boot camp – what the processing efforts are and expectations for performanceQuality control boot camp – what the QC required steps and scope are and policy relating to escalation to Management,Workflow analysis and defining business requirements – how to analyze, define and document business processes and interfacesOperations Training Wheels – how to create job aides to support new operations employees and/or improve performanceFrom our training efforts, we can also assist your company with creating “leave behind” materials, policy documents, process documentation, workflow aids, and other tools that can directly enhance the business processes and compliance for your employees.Finance, Accounting, Reporting, Specialized Audit and Compliance Services Hilltop’s primary services in this area are as follows:FinanceFinance services provided have involved helping large and small clients with some of the basic functions of a finance department including, but not limited to:on-call CFO needs,business planning (new products, new service lines, expansions, acquisitions, etc.),external financial reporting design and implementation,management reporting design and implementation,assessment of profitability, costs and cost accounting, etc.,budget creation and monitoring,cashflow management – reporting, monitoring, projections,assessing liquidity risks and creating contingency plans,debt and capital planning,Bank borrowing process and loan application,valuations – enterprise and specific asset valuation,financial engineering for sophisticated financial transactions like REMIC cashflows and bondholder payments, earn-outs, purchase price calculations, etc.model validation and controls,The Finance function and our services therein generally includes all non-accounting and audit related activities.Accounting and Audit ReadinessAccounting and Audit Readiness services provided typically address our clients’ needs to support the accounting, internal controls, financial and management reporting and any audits of their business.? Examples of services provided are summarized as follows:CFO and Controller services can be provided on a short-term basis, project need and/or regular monthly services for companies that cannot yet afford a full-time position,designing, implementing and testing accounting policies, processes, internal controls and financial?systems,providing accounting advice relating to new accounting requirements and implementation, compliance requirements affecting accounting policy/processes, accounting issues, issues with your audit, new, new reporting requirements, etc.establishing procedures and controls to ensure that the accounting policy is adhered to (key or significant control points designed in our client’s internal controls (SOX)),identifying, implementing and testing financial systems for general ledger, management reporting, subledger, controls systems and any other finance or accounting need,Hilltop often “jumps in” when our client does not have the resources or methodology to identify/correct errors within the financial information (financials, general ledger, payroll, cost records, etc.). In this case our forensics team assesses the following: possible errors in the accounting system,possible errors in the data input, process or output and controls over such,evidence of incomplete transaction data,evidence of inaccurate transaction data,possible fraudulent entries and/or reporting to meet contract, bank covenant or shareholder promised results,possible improper use or interpretation of transaction data (data definition issues or use of too many End User Computing systems (spreadsheets that are not compared to the financial system),possible issues with poor or inexperienced accounting staff,possible management override of controls, processes, analyses, etc.evidence of errors in the data created/managed by other than the source systems (i.e. EUCs are used or separate databases that are not properly reconciled to source financial systems like the G/L, payroll system, etc.)evidence of accounting applications that were implemented incorrectly or the application was changed without proper review and testing,evidence of data transfers or downloads that affect the recording/capture of accounting data,Other risks involving people, process or technology and impact the capture, recording, processing, and reporting of accounting information.Performing audit readiness activities by providing accountants to prepare for and respond to audit requirements/inquiries as follows: gathering compliance policies/procedures documentation and evidence of compliance with requirements to give to auditors,providing SOX/internal control documentation to auditors,testing financial and operating controls as a “mock audit” before the auditors begin their audit to assess what results are likely to be,calculating the allowance for loan and lease losses (ALLL),analyzing risks and calculating loss estimates to be accrued as reserves or considered as part of asset fair value calculations,performing asset management accounting & reporting,training client accountants or internal auditors on new accounting or auditing topics, andassisting in the Fair Market Value and asset classification policy and procedures.Accounting FraudsHilltop’s CPAs and audit professionals have all experienced a client with a fraud event in the accounting area.? Frauds can happen anywhere in a client’s operations but our CPAs are focused especially on those frauds that occur with material financial statement impact.? A few examples include:embezzlements,purposeful over-statement of the financial results or the assets and equity,incomplete or cancelled transactions accounted for as completed,using clearing accounts to cover up errors in various accounts,using dormant bank accounts to move funds to personal/controlled accounts,paying commissions or other incentives on overstated financials, andrecording personal transactions/expenses as corporate expenses.Our Fraud team utilizes Hilltop’s methodology for fraud investigations as noted in the Fraud Investigations business description.Forensics (accounting records reconstruction and reconciliation)Hilltop has performed its forensic accounting services for a number of clients.?? Our Forensics practice addresses reconstruction and reconciliation of all operational and financial records/information, however, accounting is the most typical engagement where Hilltop would perform the following services:bank reconciliations that have significant volume and many years of unreconciled activity,finding and assembling financial information needed to support file many years of unfiled Federal and state tax returns,financial transaction information lost due to fire, computer failure without backups, other business disruption issues,reconstruction of sales and shipping information over a long period of years,recasting business transactions and recording such in the proper business unit, andany other major need to reconstruct and reconcile financial and/or banking information.While many of the situations requiring forensic accounting work are caused by mistakes or business disruptions that are not controllable, there are situations where the Company or its owner has purposefully caused the destruction of records or simply not maintained the financial information.? The latter is typically where the forensic effort is tied to a fraud investigation, a tax audit, a litigation dispute, a major compliance issue or other criminal activity.Financial, Compliance and Specialized Audits and Agreed Upon Procedures (AUP)Financial, Compliance and Specialized Audits and Agreed Upon Procedures (AUP) are performed by Hilltop auditors for various purposes.? Hilltop gains efficiency in preforming such because of our industry knowledge and financial experience.? Further, our clients that have complex audit/AUP requirements need a firm like Hilltop that can provide a comprehensive and accurate audit/AUP review.Hilltop provides assistance to large and small CPA firms by providing audit team members to help perform financial statement audits (both commercial and Federal audits).? Hilltop teams also perform compliance and/or loan reviews on behalf of the Compliance or Internal Audit groups of many banks who access our subject matter knowledge.? We have also assisted the bank’s CFO/Controller with ALLL and reserve calculations.Hilltop provides “agreed upon procedures” (AUP) reviews to meet compliance needs that are specified in the following:regulatory requirements,Bank loan covenants,earn-out calculations and payment requirements,compensation plan requirements,loan sale representation and warranty requirements,loan servicing or Pooling & Servicing (PSA) agreements,loan reviews to support litigation claims,performance contracts (sales effort, bonuses, vendor incentives, etc.),legal settlement payment calculations,vendor contracts relating to scope, terms, service level agreements, etc.,lease agreements that require annual calculations lease escalations,any other contractual or legal settlement requirements.Finance and Accounting Technology & Data Controls AssessmentsInformation technology risks are significant given the increasing reliance for all business operations and financial information to be processed by a computer in some manner.? If the risks are not controlled and monitored – it could have a significant disruptive impact on our client.?? Hilltop has expanded its’ IT & Data controls team that helps our clients establish the controls, test to see that they are working and perform any remediation effort if the controls are weak or not working.? Our clients must remember that controls are only effective if all of the essential components are effective and working.? These components are the IT & Data policies, procedures (both manual and application based), people who perform the procedures and monitor the controls in place, Management’s culture and attitude about controls (is it an important topic in meetings or not?) and finally the application technology and controls applications that are performing monitoring as well.? IT and Data controls help ensure that the applications produce complete and accurate reports, process transaction properly and ensure that data is tested and used appropriately within the technology systems.Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank legislation increased the intensity of the spotlight on IT controls and their effectiveness, especially with respect to “Personally Identifiable Information or PII”. ? Accordingly, Hilltop has several Certified Information Security Auditors who along with our industry consultants help our clients with the critical assessment of IT & Data controls. ?The first step in our IT & Data controls assessment is to review “general controls” that include:assessing the control environment which establish the corporate culture and “ HYPERLINK "" tone at the top” i.e. Management seriousness about adhering to IT controls,assessing HYPERLINK "" change management procedures and the controls designed to ensure the application and data changes meet business requirements and are authorized,reviewing HYPERLINK "" source code and evaluate HYPERLINK "" document HYPERLINK "" version control procedures that protect the integrity of program code (which is the right version to use),determining if the client has HYPERLINK "" software development life cycle (SDLC) standards that help ensure IT projects are effectively managed and reduce the risk of a bad application being launched,identifying HYPERLINK "" access policies, standards and processes that manage access based upon Management’s decision of who needs to have what access for ongoing business purposes,reviewing client’s log of HYPERLINK "" incidents and determining if management policies and procedures are being adhered to relative to controls that identify operational processing errors,identifying the root cause of various incidents noted in the previous step and how such is addressed by the IT team and Management,assessing the HYPERLINK "" technical support procedures and documentation that should be in place to help users get efficient use of the applications and to be able to report problems when experienced,reviewing new HYPERLINK "" hardware and HYPERLINK "" software configurations, installation, testing, management standards, policies and procedures,assessing HYPERLINK "" disaster recovery and data HYPERLINK "" backup and recovery procedures,assessing controls over HYPERLINK "" physical security over IT platform installations, hardware, data and all storage areas.ensuring that data definitions are documented and used consistently throughout company,assessing data security including basic and more advanced cyber security techniques used,Key questions that our team will ask include:If the appropriate controls exist in processes, technologies, data, security and change management?If the controls are operating effectively and according to their stated purpose and recommendations to improve effectivenessWhether gaps exist in controls and recommendations to close gapsWhether there are redundant controls that increase cost and decrease efficiency and recommendations on streamlining controlsIf management and reporting processes exist to provide stakeholders with transparency into controls effectivenessHilltop will make basic recommendations on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the IT control environment (no application specific controls have been evaluated at this level yet)Our team will only begin assessing applications specific controls and controls over non-productions applications (EUCs, etc.) if we have completed our assessment of the general controls noted above.IT application or program controls should be fully automated and designed to ensure that operating data is processed completely and accurately from input through output. ?Application controls can help ensure the privacy and security of data transmitted between applications. ?Our IT audit team would address application controls as follows:test completeness checks that ensure that all transaction data/records were processed from input to completed process,test validity checks that ensure only valid data is input or processed (data scrubs, reasonableness tests, etc.),assess whether the identification controls are in effect whereby all users are uniquely identified by the system and operate at the level permissible,test the authentication controls that ensure the transaction data/record information is appropriate,test the authorization controls to determine that business users have approved access at the appropriate level of the application,test input controls to determine that data integrity is not affected when moved from one system to another, andtest forensic controls which ensure that data is scientifically and/or mathematically correct based on inputs and outputs.Clients benefit from our thorough, independent view of their IT controls and our recommendations.? We bring extensive experience as auditors, regulatory examiners, IT executives and risk management professionals to our assessments. We follow accepted industry frameworks, practices and standards, such as COBIT, in conducting assessments.? Our recommendations are practical, cost effective and achieve the IT control effectiveness demanded by management, regulators and auditors.Federal Accounting and Financial Statement AuditsHilltop has a number of accountants including our founder who have Federal accounting and audit experience.? Our Federal accounting and audit team has finance and accounting experience as consultants and employees in a number of the agencies.?? We understand the differences between commercial and Federal agency accounting, reporting and audit requirements.? Hilltop has a number of subcontracts with major audit firms to help perform financial statement audits (our firm does not do financial statement audits).? Hilltop does assist our Federal agency clients with compliance audits, investigations and litigation relating to finance and accounting topics.Controls Assessments (Design, Implementation & Testing)Controls assessments have been important to our industry for many years.? Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank legislation increased the intensity of the spotlight on business controls and their effectiveness.? Regulators like the CFPB and others are introducing controls concepts that require Management to establish a Compliance Management System (CMS).Hilltop supports our clients’ needs for assessing and implementing appropriate operating and internal controls.? We thoroughly assess clients’ operating environments, including operations management processes, interfaces with technology, data and security.? We bring extensive experience as auditors, regulatory examiners, operations executives and risk management professionals to our assessments. ?Given our audit and industry focused experience, Hilltop can assist our client with its assessment of each of the following controls types:Financial,Operational,Regulatory,Compliance,All risk types,TechnologyHilltop’s controls assessment methodology (which addresses all of the above types) has several key differentiators from standard SOX-like reviews of accounting controls as follows:assessing our client’s business to identify what is critical to “protect”,identifying the policies, processes, people and technology applications that need to be in place to “protect” the identified aspects of the business,identifying the appropriate key/significant control points that should be “built into” the business i.e. processes, applications, training, security, organizational structure, etc.This methodology allows our client to focus on the significant/key control points for all of the control types.? Most clients do separate analyses of each type of control and the result is too many key/significant controls being identified.After completing our independent assessment, we will make recommendations for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the existing controls environment and suggest improvements to close any gaps that were identified, while at the same time recommending possible streamlining of existing controls.? Hilltop uses our controls evaluation process to reduce the number of controls being monitored (i.e. redundant controls increase cost and decrease efficiency) and hence the cost of maintaining all control types, especially the regulatory controls.?Information and Data Technology Consulting Services Hilltop provides technology and data consulting services to all types and sizes of companies.? We have four basic consulting service areas that include the following:aligning a client’s strategy with its deployed technology while considering new technologies (blockchain, eNotes, MERS, MISMO data standards, workflow, machine learning/Big Data, etc.),identifying and implementing the right technology solutions for our client’s business (compliance, accounting, lending, modeling, loan portfolio analytics, fraud, secondary marketing, loan servicing, other “add on” applications, etc.),integrating business processes, applications and data (ensuring that the right integration resources and tools are being used) and testing the results,helping with assessing and mitigating IT and data risks with comprehensive IT and Data audit procedures that meet all COBIT standards.IT Assessment & StrategyHilltop understands the importance of aligning business needs and requirements with the appropriate information technology tools and applications to gain competitive advantage or better fulfill critical missions.? That’s why each IT engagement begins with a thorough assessment of your company’s business needs, current technology solutions and personnel.? Our assessment is followed by the development of a customized strategic plan incorporating recommendations for the changes needed in order to optimize IT investment and effectiveness.Once an IT strategic plan is finalized, our Tech and IT audit teams help execute the strategy including the identification of critical business requirements, selection of technology products and services that may meet such requirements, vendor RFP process and selection and implementation of the application.?? Our project management resources will be involved to ensure that all aspects of the project are being managed and executed appropriately.? And because we recognize the importance of realizing an appropriate return on an IT investment, our team will use PerforMetrics? to help measure the operating and financial metrics of your business both before and after the implementation to assure your company is getting the results it expects.Identifying and Implementing the Right Technology Solutions for our Client’s BusinessOur clients face constantly changing new technologies while trying to identify the business requirements of today and the future.? Aligning the right technology solution with such needs and ensuring measurable benefits is a daunting task.? Clients realize that to ensure a solid return on their IT investments, they need to ensure that the IT application will meet their business need and be flexible enough to be able to make changes as their marketplace changes.Hilltop understands the?importance of aligning the business?needs and?technologies. ?We combine our deep knowledge of technology with extensive business expertise in lending, loan servicing, capital markets, real estate and government. ?Our business and technology integrated teams ensure that we consider all aspects of what the new technology meets the client’s needs and how it will do so.? In the lending, secondary loan sales, loan servicing, securitization and compliance areas, Hilltop has deep knowledge and experience with the various technology offerings in the market, who the vendors are and know what specialized applications are available (master servicing, default/foreclosure systems, portfolio or securities management systems, etc.).A critical component of ensuring that the technology meets the business need is for our client to have an effective IT governance roadmap to help make each new application fit with the previous/existing technology.? We help clients develop the necessary IT governance, organizational accountability and administrative structure to ensure effective technology selection and implementation process for all new technology acquired.As noted above, we assist our clients with moving through the roadmap – strategy, business need, requirements, market offerings, vendor selection, implementation, testing and “go-live”.Data Analysis & StrategyHilltop is focused on the data technology and controls area as the finance services market is heavily dependent upon data but has yet to truly achieve a customer centric database (with all relationships with the customer clearly identified and integrated).? Hilltop’s focus in this area has caused the Company to match our consultants with industry knowledge and deep controls experience with consultants in the most advanced and largest data technology firms.? Our Hilltop and teaming partner resources can help our clients assess and formulate an effective data management and security solution.? We work with our client organizations to create and implement strategies and technologies for sourcing, cleansing, organizing, distributing and managing data.? Our services in this area include:Data strategy – conducting current state assessments of the data environment including governance, architecture, quality, security, database/cloud usage to creating a strategy and roadmap to enhance the environment and close gaps to meet business objectives,Data Architecture – defining conceptual, logical and physical representations of our client’s data structures, databases and metadataData Governance – establishing the processes and controls for adding, changing and deleting data, changing data architecture, setting data definitions, etc.,Data Sourcing – identifying the sources of data and establishing processes for defining data definitions, moving data and maintaining or improving data quality,Master Data Management – the governance, technologies and processes for creating, consolidating, enriching and distributing master data (source of truth reference data) to applications and users.Each of the above data strategy and policy components help our clients to be able to use their data safely, more effectively to better serve customers (identifying and delivering customers’ needs) and making the client’s business more efficient with lower technology costs.? As part of the data technology services, Hilltop has expanded its’ experience with MERs and the common platform for data within the mortgage industry (MISMO).Business Data Management & ReportingData is powerful to the management team that knows how to use it.? However, the data must be accurate, complete, defined/used properly and meaningful to its users.? Companies struggle with cost effective solutions for data management and reporting.? Hilltop’s Data consultants designed, implemented data management solutions that are also cost-effective solutions for a wide range of financial services and other clients.? Data is only important or critical to maintain to the extent that business users obtain benefit from using and having access to such data.? Accordingly, Hilltop approaches the data technology consulting from the business perspective to determine what data is really important.?? Accordingly, our structured data analysis methodology includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:understand sources and uses of data,assess the quality of the data (from the users’ perspective and through some testing),understand the flow of data? – where and how it’s used in the business process,identify what external and management reports are really critical to the business and what data is needed to populate such reports,identify the key business drivers and financial/operational risks that management needs reporting upon (this is to ensure that the reports identified above are complete in meeting Management’s needs),identify who “owns” the data that is needed (who in the Company is accountable for the quality (does it meet Management’s need), completeness and accuracy of this data),identify gaps in data availability, quality, data process inefficiencies, “data holes” (data that is desired but not available), ownership/accountability, organization of data management and data controls.Hilltop has developed a simple process to identify the above “gaps” in data by asking the following questions:Does Management have reports and data that identify the critical business indicators? PerformanceProfitabilityRisksFraudCustomer satisfactionDo reports contain “exception based” reporting content?? Information reported based on the data meeting certain criteria.Is your reporting timely enough?Is your reporting dependable or are there many explanations for anomalies or errors?Does the Client have too many “data checkers” i.e. data reconciliation resources?Do managers use the reports generated? Do they trust the reports?Is the time to create the management reports significant?? Is it a good use of the creator’s time?Is “decision engine” technology used to support/supply the reporting?If the answers to any of these questions are No or Not Likely – there are opportunities to enhance your data management and overall reporting.Our methodology yields results and allows our clients to take action that results in the following:data that meets all of Management’s needs,higher quality of data,more cost-effective management and use of data,better processing/movement/consistent use of data,providing the Client with the ability to benchmark data quality,implementing analytics to measure, improve and control the use of data, as well as, improve data controls,close the “gaps” in the Client’s effective use of data.Mergers, Acquisitions, Due Diligence Consulting Services Hilltop’s M&A services team has significant depth of experience with mergers and acquisitions having been involved in over 250 acquisitions of banks, mortgage companies, loan servicers, REITs, real estate developers, homebuilders, insurance companies, etc. ?Our “integrated team concept” of utilizing experienced industry professionals with the finance/accounting, tax, operations, and technology perspectives allows Hilltop to provide “due diligence” of the target’s operations, financials, compliance, technology applications used, senior management and other key personnel assessments, etc.? Our multi-disciplined team have performed the following services for the acquirer:developing acquisition goals, a strategy and steps to be taken,creating target company profiles (business and financial attributes, size, profitability, etc.) and list of possible targets,conducting due diligence using our standard M&A work plan that focuses on the financials, operations, risks, compliance, technology, personnel, efficiency metrics, etc.,performing sample loan reviews to assess documentation, compliance, credit, risk for a target lender or loan portfolio owner,financial modeling that incorporate buyer’s target financial outcomes (ROI, ROE, Debt/Equity, Process Cost, etc.), cash flows and income/expense projections,valuations of the specific assets or the enterprise,purchase pricing structure,assisting counsel with the purchase agreement terms, especially reps and warranties relating to identified risks (repurchases, indemnifications, litigation, etc.),closing date review,earn out calculations,contingent price calculations,compliance reviews of reps and warranties,planning and executing post acquisition business integration steps (operating structure, management positions, financial reporting, accounting, HR, technology, policies and procedures, vendor selection/consolidation, etc.), andanalyzing performance metrics one or more years after acquisition/merger to compare actual to planned results.Most of our engagements have been to support the acquirer or a bidder to the transaction.?? However, we have been involved in a number of large asset?sales as a financial advisor to the seller.? Our specific efforts related to asset sales have included the following assistance to the seller:Developing the sales strategy and related goals,Creating financial models (hold sell analysis, loss calculations if applicable, estimates of contingent prices, calculation of likely price to be received, etc.),Creating target company profiles and lists (who are the likely buyers),Planning the sale, Structure (closed/open bids, auction, other),Pricing (minimum bids and other pricing criteria),Preparing for diligence by buyers,Planning solicitation process for bidders/buyers,Preparing instructions for each step of the sales process – for the seller and for the buyers,Preparing a calendar of events,Establishing seller deadlines – when all decisions, information and other seller responsibilities need to be completed,Establishing a HotLine for any issues during the sales effortCreating the contact list for all parties needed to complete the salePreparing the “data room” for due diligence,Managing the buyer access to the “data room”,Assisting with all buyer questions and obtaining seller’s responses,Calculating comparable sales prices,Obtaining offers or conducting auction,Analyzing offers and identifying risks/contingencies built into buyers’ assumptions/terms,Prepare “hold/sell” analyses,Make recommendation as to priority of buyers,Assist with any follow-up negotiations,Assisting counsel with the sales agreement terms (reps and warranties as well as pricing considerations as result of identified risks),Assisting with any closing date due diligence and transfer of assets, andPerforming final price calculation and any contingent risks.Given Hilltop’s resources and skill base, we are a firm with extensive purchase and/or sales transaction experience.Privacy Policy The Hilltop Companies desires to protect the privacy of all clients, prospects, staff, prospective employees, and all visitors. Our Privacy Policy details the information and data collected from viewers and how that information is used by our company.Our company obtains and only uses information viewers give voluntarily. This information is used to serve our viewers and/or to perform certain website-related services, including site improvement and maintenance. We do not give third parties permission to use personal or individualized data/information. This information will not other than providing of such information to maintain and /or service the site.We do collect data which is used for statistical purposes such as website page viewership tracking. We use this data only in compliance with applicable laws.If required by law enforcement, regulatory or other government agencies, or third parties where necessary in order to comply with legal or regulatory obligations, personally identifiable information may be disclosed.The Hilltop Companies reserves the right to change the Terms and Conditions at any time in its sole discretion by updating this posting.Resources - Published Papers Members of The Hilltop Companies’ senior leadership team are frequent speakers at industry conferences where they regularly produce and publish critical viewpoints on pressing issues. We are pleased to share the following papers and presentations with you: HYPERLINK "" \t "_blank" “Rewriting the Loan Servicing Business” by Geoffrey A. Oliver, CEO HYPERLINK "" \t "_blank" “ HYPERLINK "" \t "_blank" New Challenges for Loss Mitigation and the Allowance for Loan Losses HYPERLINK "" \t "_blank" ”by Geoffrey A. Oliver, CEO HYPERLINK "" “Loss Mitigation – the Unknown Financial Impact”by Geoffrey A. Oliver, CEO HYPERLINK "" “Loss Mitigation – What is an Investor to do?”by Geoffrey A. Oliver, CEOTo follow is a listing of articles and presentations written by Geoffrey A. Oliver and the other partners of The Hilltop Companies. If you would like a copy of any of these documents, please us at HYPERLINK "mailto:gaoliver@" info@.Automated Underwriting Tools – Are they still useful? ?– April 2009Risks and rewards of investing in reverse mortgages and lenders ?– 2008Securitization Basics and what can go wrong? – ?2006Customer Relationship Basics – ?2006SFAS 149 Overview Presentation ?– 2005Benchmarking the Mortgage Industry (past MorPro and MorServ articles for ??2001, 1999, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993)Its Not the Hedge Model, Its the Data being Used – 2004Internet Lending: Simplifying the Mortgage Origination Process – 2003 A New form of Mortgage Banker – the Asset Banker? – 2005Internet’s Impact on the Cost of Production ?– 2005 When should a Bank be in the Mortgage Finance Business?Servicing Asset Strategies ?– 1999Sample Page This is an example page. It’s different from a blog post because it will stay in one place and will show up in your site navigation (in most themes). Most people start with an About page that introduces them to potential site visitors. It might say something like this:Hi there! I’m a bike messenger by day, aspiring actor by night, and this is my blog. I live in Los Angeles, have a great dog named Jack, and I like pi?a coladas. (And gettin’ caught in the rain.)…or something like this:The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, and has been providing quality doohickies to the public ever since. Located in Gotham City, XYZ employs over 2,000 people and does all kinds of awesome things for the Gotham community.As a new WordPress user, you should go to HYPERLINK "" your dashboard to delete this page and create new pages for your content. Have fun!Careers Our most important asset is our people!? Hilltop is known for its accomplished and skilled professionals (accountants, consultants, technologists)?who bring?significant work experience and proven track records with successful companies.? Successful candidates typically exhibit the following:Leadership,Problem solving skills,Likes challenges,Analytical skills,Teamwork orientation,Patient,Able to get along with different personality types,Strong client service perspective,Dedication to your job,?Professionalism.We look for employees who enjoy and thrive in a high-growth, fast-paced, collaborative and collegial work environment involved in transforming our client’s businesses. ?We are constantly in the market for the right professionals and Management level employees.Hilltop’s professionals must have the following minimum requirements:Bachelors (minimum) or Master’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics and other subjects needed for specific engagements i.e. cyber security, IT controls, database management, etc.,Minimum years of specific consulting/accounting/auditing experience for each labor category shown below,Industry knowledge and experience which meets client needs/market demands will increase opportunities with Hilltop and possibly impact the labor category/title,Familiarity with the consulting services that Hilltop Advisors and affiliates deliversStrong communications skills,Team management and training experience for Senior Associate/Accountant/Auditor level and above.Candidates with the following skills (assuming they meet all other requirements) will be strongly preferred if they have the following:Prior consulting or public accounting firm experience (especially at management level),Audit experience –?financial, operational, controls, compliance, fraud, or other specialty audits,Regulatory compliance knowledge and experience,CPA, CISA, CMB, CFF, etc. or other Federal certifications for accounting, finance or technology,Technology or data controls.Candidates for our company leadership team?must be dynamic, outgoing, driven self-starters, sales oriented (demonstrate the ability to identify and sell business), organized, able to delegate well, execute at a high-performance level and be ready for constant change. Leadership candidates must have previous consulting or accounting or auditing experience with a strong track record of executing Hilltop type engagements.At Hilltop, you’ll work with some of the most talented professionals in the industry and will be engaged with a number of challenging clients (large and small) in our target client sectors – Banking, Capital Markets, Real Estate companies and Government Financial Sector Agencies.If you would like to know more about the Hilltop companies or be considered for a position at one of our companies, please send your cover letter and ?resume to HYPERLINK "mailto:myeshiwas@" myeshiwas@ or go to? HYPERLINK "" Submit Resume.Hilltop’s Labor Categories – Titles and Job Descriptions(some differences from Hilltop’s GSA Labor Categories)Executive Officer/Partner/Principal/SME This individual will have a minimum of 15+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 14+ years of experience will also meet the requirements.? An Officer or Principal of the Company will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 5 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.The Officer’s or Principal’s role will depend on the title but in all cases will have management responsibility, supervision requirements, operational duties, and have the primary duty of finding business, pricing jobs, hiring staff for engagements and administrative positions, execute duties of job, have the primary duty of managing the business or a recognized subset or department of the business, will have the authority to make or at least recommend important personnel decisions (hiring, firing, and promotions). The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to the company.Managing DirectorThis individual will have a minimum of 14+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 12+ years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 5 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.The MD will have the primary duty of finding business, pricing jobs, hiring staff for engagements, execute duties of job, will have the authority to make or at least recommend important personnel decisions, like hiring, firing, and promotions. The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to the company and specific client engagements.Senior Director This individual will have a minimum of 12+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 10 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 5 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.Responsibilities include engagement planning, supervision, review and completion of work. The Senior Director monitors the status of the engagement, advises and consults with the Engagement Managing Director on all significant developments.? Senior Director will be the primary liaison to the client.? Senior Directors manage the large-scale engagements or coordinate multiple engagements within the firm, and contribute technical expertise and experience to engagements. Reviews work papers and oversees the drafting of reports. Senior Director’s assist in oversight of managers and in the distribution of resources across engagements. They also participate in department and team management in the areas of engagement management, staff development, and technical effectiveness, marketing and sales. This position requires finding new business, pricing jobs, identifying candidates for the engagements, execute duties of job including supervising/training/evaluating other staff, will have direct input on important personnel decisions, like hiring, firing, and promotions. The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to the company and specific client engagements.Director/Senior Manager This individual will have a minimum of 10+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 9 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 3 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.The Director will assist with finding new business, pricing jobs, identifying candidates for the engagements, execute duties of job including supervising/training/evaluating other staff, will have direct input on important personnel decisions, like hiring, firing, and promotions.? The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to the company and specific client engagements.Manager 1This individual will have a minimum of 9+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 8 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 2 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.The Manager will assist with scoping new engagements, pricing jobs, identifying candidates for the engagements, executing engagement duties including supervising/training/evaluating other staff, will have direct input on important personnel decisions, like hiring, firing, and promotions.? The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to the company and specific client engagements.Manager 2This individual will have a minimum of 7+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 7 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 2 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.The Manager will assist with scoping new engagements, pricing jobs, identifying candidates for the engagements, executing engagement duties including supervising/training/evaluating other staff, will have direct input on important personnel decisions, like hiring, firing, and promotions.? The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to the company and specific client engagements.???Supervisor/Supervising Senior Accountant/Auditor/Associate – Level 1 This individual will have a minimum of 7+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 6 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 2 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position will assist with scoping new engagements, planning assignments to meet the engagement requirements and deliverables, execute engagement duties including day to day management, supervising/training/evaluating other staff, and reporting to Engagement management and client personnel.? This position will have direct input on important personnel decisions such as engagement performance and areas of needed improvement.?? The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to specific client engagements.Supervisor/Supervising Senior Accountant/Auditor/Associate – Level 2 This individual will have a minimum of 6+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 5 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 2 years.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position will assist with scoping new engagements, planning assignments to meet the engagement requirements and deliverables, execute engagement duties including day to day management, supervising/training/evaluating other staff, and reporting to Engagement management and client personnel.? This position will have direct input on important personnel decisions such as engagement performance and areas of needed improvement.?? The position requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to specific client engagements.Senior Accountant/Auditor/Associate – Level 1 This individual will have a minimum of 6 years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 4+ years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 1 year.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position will help with day to day management of the engagement, draft deliverables, assist with the execution of engagement duties including performing analysis, supervising/training/evaluating other staff, and reporting to Engagement management and client personnel.? This position will have input on important personnel decisions such as engagement performance and areas of needed improvement for other staff.? The position requires the exercise of discretion, analytical assessment and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to specific client engagements.Senior Accountant/Auditor/Associate – Level 2This individual will have a minimum of 4+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 3 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 1 year.? Position requires advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have specialist certifications such as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position will help with day to day management of the engagement, draft deliverables, assist with the execution of engagement duties including performing analysis, supervising/training/evaluating other staff, and reporting to Engagement management and client personnel.? This position will have input on important personnel decisions such as engagement performance and areas of needed improvement for other staff.? The position requires the exercise of discretion, analytical assessment and independent judgment with respect to matters significant to specific client engagements.Staff Accountant/Auditor/Associate Level 1 This individual will have a minimum of 3 years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 2 years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have provided professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for no less than 1 year.? Individual is obtaining required advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have or is pursuing various specialist certifications such as a CPA, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.The position will execute engagement duties with supervision as needed.? Associate will create, implement and render conclusions from spreadsheet analysis results.? Associate will be responsible for reading and analyzing client documents to assess completeness, accuracy, and compliance.? Analyst may supervise/provide guidance to client personnel.? Associate must exercise discretion, strong analytical assessment capabilities and independent judgment (capable of making independent conclusions with support for such) with respect to matters significant to specific client engagements.? (Exempt Employee assuming individual is on track for professional certification and/or specialized industry experience).Staff Accountant/Auditor/Associate Level 2This individual will have a minimum of 2+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? An individual with an MBA or CPA and 1+ years of experience will also meet the requirements.? Employee will have been exposed to professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting) for at least 1 year.? Individual is obtaining required advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have or is pursuing various specialist certifications such as a CPA, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position will execute engagement duties with supervision as needed.? Associate will create, implement and render conclusions from spreadsheet analysis results.? Associate will be responsible for reading and analyzing client documents to assess completeness, accuracy, and compliance.? Analyst may supervise/provide guidance to client personnel.? Associate must exercise discretion, strong analytical assessment capabilities and independent judgment (capable of making independent conclusions with support for such) with respect to matters significant to specific client engagements.Accountant/Auditor/Analyst Level 1This individual will have a minimum of 1+ years of experience in finance, accounting, audit/control, fraud & forensic, industry experience and a BA/BS degree.?? Employee will have been exposed to professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting).? Individual is obtaining required advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual may also have or is pursuing various specialist certifications such as a CPA, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position does analytical reviews, reviews supporting documentation for exceptions and/or findings, tracks documents received from client, tracks findings and maintains any databases, prepares work papers to support final report, where applicable.Accountant/Auditor/Analyst – Level 2This individual will have a BA/BS degree and will have 1 or less years of experience.?? Employee will have been exposed to professional services (accounting, auditing, legal or consulting).? Individual is obtaining required advanced knowledge and skill that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or specific/specialized experience (accounting, finance, operations, technology, change management, strategic planning, etc.).Individual is pursuing various specialist certifications such as a CPA, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Financial Forensic specialist (CFF), Certified Financial Advisor/Analyst (CFA), Federal certifications including Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), Certified Government Audit Professional (CGAP), Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO), industry certifications including Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), Certified Banker, etc.This position does analytical reviews, reviews supporting documentation for exceptions and/or findings, tracks documents received from client, tracks findings and maintains any databases, prepares work papers to support final report, where applicable.Submit Application/Resume Thank you for your interest in possible career opportunities at The Hilltop Companies. We welcome resumes from qualified professionals who would like to be considered for employment. Please complete the e-mail form and attach or include your cover letter in the comments box below. * indicates required fieldName:* FORMTEXT ?????Email:* FORMTEXT ?????Subject:* FORMTEXT ?????Message:*

Attach file FORMTEXT ?????Acceptable file types: doc,pdf,txt.Maximum file size: 1mb.Attach your cover letter and resume as a single file. Phone FORMTEXT ?????left0 HYPERLINK \o "Refresh" CAPTCHA Code:* FORMTEXT ?????MACROBUTTON DoFieldClick [Submit]The Companies HYPERLINK "" The Companies’ HistoryIn June of 2005, industry leader Geoffrey (Jeff) A. Oliver founded Hilltop Advisors, LLC which has become a leading financial services consulting firm.? Hilltop Advisors concentrates on the credit/lending aspects of the financial services industry, the loan servicing aspects and the sale/securitization of financial assets.? Jeff formed the company following a combined 29-year career at KPMG LLP and BearingPoint, Inc., where he led many national practices (practices including the Lending, Homebuilding, Structured Finance/Securitization, REIT and other audit and consulting practices).?? His KPMG career allowed him to start and build Hilltop Advisors given his national clients and Federal agency contacts.? Hilltop Advisors has become one of the leading national boutique firms in providing consulting to banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, loan servicers, issuers of securities, the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and various equity investors that invest in the credit, servicing and capital markets sectors.? In addition, Hilltop Advisors is approved as a contractor for the GSA Financial and Accounting Business Services contract and performs consulting for the Federal agencies involved in the credit (lending and loan guarantees), securitization, and regulatory aspects of Federal financial sector.?? We conduct such business in either a Prime or Subcontractor role and utilize our very experienced and highly trained consultants to perform such work.In 2007, HYPERLINK "" Hilltop Accounting was formed to focus on the finance and accounting needs of our clients and to expand into assisting small and medium sized companies (in all industries) with meeting their accounting, compliance and other financial requirements.?? Our accounting firm provides CFO/Controller duties, budget and cash management assistance, selection and implementation of financial systems, financial statement analysis and reconciliation, audit and tax return readiness assistance, fraud investigation and forensic accounting services, among other things.?? Hilltop Accounting attracts accountants who want to provide consultative services that help all of our clients, including all industry segments such as our Financial Services, Federal Financial sector agencies and emerging companies.Also in 2007, HYPERLINK "" Hilltop Advisory Partners was formed to focus on consulting and accounting services to the real estate community of developers, homebuilders, asset managers, property managers, REITs, investors, leasing and sales brokerages, etc.?? Advisory Partners will team with real estate experts as needed to meet various client needs including market analyses, valuation, leasing, sales, etc.? We have performed due diligence, property or asset manager audits, REIT formation assistance, lease compliance testing (rent increases and common area expense allocations), etc.In 2014, HYPERLINK "" Hilltop Government Solutions (HGS) began operations to focus on providing outsourcing and/or staff augmentation services to various Federal agencies.? We conduct this business through subcontracts with a number of large consulting/accounting firms and diversified or special designation consulting firms (8A, women owned, Disabled veteran owned, etc.).? HGS provides services which require clerical and process execution (no higher education, technical training or significant industry experience required).In late 2015, Dan McLaughlin was hired as President of HYPERLINK "" Hilltop iSolutions (after spending 20+ years starting up and operating the Mortgage Electronic Registry System (MERS).? iSolutions’ focus is on IT and data controls, data integrity, security (including cyber activities) and compliance with various Federal and other regulations, use of eNotes in the mortgage industry and identifying/implementing lending and loan servicing applications.? iSolutions has also built internal applications used in many of Hilltop’s compliance audit engagements.In early 2016, HYPERLINK "" Hilltop Federal Services (HFS), a subsidiary of Hilltop Advisors, began consulting to Federal agencies that make loans, insure or guarantee the repayment of such loans by the borrower, securitize loans and other assets or provide regulatory oversight to the financial services industry (the Federal Finance sector).? Our focus is on all aspects of such agencies operations including finance, accounting, audit (compliance, controls and audit readiness), lending, loan guarantee or insurance operations, enterprise risk management (especially credit and counter-party risks), securitization, fraud, data/cyber technology, etc.For marketing purposes, the six companies are referred to as “The Hilltop Companies”.? We utilize the multiple company structure to allow for growth in the number of owners, flexibility of raising capital if needed and making a change of operation if desired without affecting all of the operations.?? While our contracts may reflect different companies providing a service, our goal is to ensure that our engagement efforts, staffing and our effective client solutions can be provided without our clients ever being concerned as to which company or which consultants/accountants are working on their engagement.?? Our promise is to “bring the best”!As the business grew, the senior team members also HYPERLINK "" expanded, bringing exceptional skill, knowledge and experience to the Hilltop companies.? All former occupants of the C-suite and other high level officer roles, the Company’s leadership hails from some of the largest financial service organizations in the country and each possesses an average of 25+ years of experience.? Hilltop’s senior team members are nationally recognized industry vanguards; innovative thought leaders who actively engaged in the industries in which they do business. And every day, they embrace our business philosophy of collaborating to create HYPERLINK "" the best solutions for every client.The Hilltop companies serve national and international clients ranging from start-up to Fortune 50 companies.? Our?headquarters is in McLean, Virginia.?? Our leadership and many of our employees are “road warriors” and have traveled extensively to meet client obligations.Hilltop’s CultureHilltop is a “can do” company.? Our experience shows that transforming organizations is achieved through the skillful alignment of vision, people, process and technology solutions.? Hilltop’s culture supports our client efforts because our collaborative, collegial, pro-active and motivated approach enables the skillful alignment needed to successfully design and implement “real change”.? Hilltop is a leading boutique financial services consulting firm because we know our clients’ business and can “get things done”.?? Hilltop doesn’t “silo our experts” into different groups, departments, regions, etc.? All of our professionals are available to work on any client engagement, cross our corporate lines as needed and collaborate to create implementable solutions for our clients.Our company wide collaboration ensures that Hilltop brings the most relevant skills, past experience (“done this before”), topical knowledge, and most importantly different viewpoints of the client’s challenge.?? Our different views of the client challenge result from utilizing our multiple disciplines (finance, operations, compliance, technology, risk management, etc.).? We don’t view a technology project as only needing technology professionals and similarly the business challenges will always have someone on the team that introduces technology issues/concepts to be integrated.Our collegiality is critical for our client success because our employees are rewarded for their cooperation and their teamwork is a key measure of performance.? Individual performance is important but teamwork is mandatory.?? Collegiality ensures that our collaboration will result in a “win for the client and a win for our team”.Our collaborative approach extends to our client personnel as well.? We know that our role is to help our client succeed and we know that if the Hilltop team is not viewed as part of the client team – the project has a high risk of failure.? Hilltop also sees collaboration as a way to fill the needs that will ensure our client’s success in dealing with their challenges.? We see collaboration as a way to bring all relevant knowledge and experience (especially the kind of “been there, done that” experience that identified what worked and didn’t work in past engagements).? Hence our culture of collaboration starts between our team members (to take advantage of all their individual knowledge, skills, experience) and continues by building a collaborative partnering with our client personnel to allow them to see that “we have their backs” and their success is our success.For our employees (especially those with less than 20 years of experience), Hilltop’s collaborative and collegial approach provides a one of a kind environment where you will work closely with very experienced team members and client personnel.? This experience will not occur with the large consulting/accounting firms.To continue and support our culture, Hilltop targets consulting candidates who can be pro-active in anticipating issues, requirements and communication needs so that our engagement teams can try to stay “one step ahead” of our clients.?? Our consultants should enjoy challenges, the puzzling issues, multi-faceted issues, tough projects and working as a team.? Positive attitudes are a must as Hilltop believes there is always a plausible solution that is implementable in every situation.? Our consultants look forward to implementing a successful solution – not brainstorming “blue sky” ideas and leaving the client to figure out how to implement such.Collaboration means we listen to our clients and our teammates.? But we also help our clients challenge the existing policies, procedures, organization and technology where appropriate.?? Our culture supports our business approach that solving a business challenge requires an alignment of a sustainable vision with our client’s employees, policies, process and technology.? Achieving substantive change is impossible without alignment of these factors.Hilltop Advisors Hilltop Advisors is a financial services consulting and accounting advisory firm.?? Our employees bring real experience in the financial, operational, compliance, risk management areas, with a special focus on credit, technology and other roles within many financial services entities and regulators.? Hilltop Advisors is known for its depth of knowledge of the financial services industry and specifically the lending, loan/financial asset sales and securitization and loan/asset servicing.? Given our experience base, we can usually assist our clients with most of their financial, operational, compliance or technology challenges.Our client base covers most of the financial services marketplace including, but not limited to, the following:Banks,Savings Banks,Credit unionsOther depository institutions,Mortgage bankers and brokers,Independent lenders (Commercial, Multifamily, Commercial Real Estate, Consumer, Student and Mortgage loans),SBA lenders – banks, CDCs, SBICs,Loan servicers (primary, special, master servicers for same loan types listed above)Asset or Mortgage Backed Securities Issuers and Investors (REMICs, MBS, CMBS, ABS, CLOs, CDOs securitization process)Credit card portfolios and securitization,Buyers or Sellers of loans and financial instrument,Housing finance agencies,Pension, Private Equity and Hedge funds (loans, financial instruments, securitization tranche and equity investments in the financial services and real estate industry),Insurance companies (real estate, mortgage and fixed income investments),Bond and Mortgage insurance companiesDocument Custodians,REITs – real estate, MSRs and mortgage backed,Mezzanine capital and lendersFunds – real estate, mortgage and fixed income investments, VCs, Investment companies,Trusts and Bank Trustees,Other Non-bank financial services entities.Our lending, loan sales and securitization and loan servicing experience covers all types of credit:Commercial loans,Multifamily loans,SBA loans,Mortgages,Home equity (loans and lines of credit),Reverse mortgages,Consumer loans (auto, boat, etc.), andCredit Cards.Hilltop Advisors assists financial services companies with all aspects from “cradle to grave” of a loan’s life.? Our experience and our services focus on loan origination, sales, securitization and loan servicing.?? See HYPERLINK "" Clients We Serve?and HYPERLINK "" Our Services?for a more detailed description.Hilltop Advisors’ strong core of professionals allows it to be competitive with much larger firms.? In fact, many larger consulting/accounting firms have chosen Hilltop to be on their client service team given our industry knowledge and experience. HYPERLINK "" Our Services?are described in more detail in that section of our website.? Please HYPERLINK "" contact Hilltop if there is a need that you have that is not listed as we may be able to assist.Hilltop Federal Services Hilltop Federal Services provides consulting and accounting advisory services to the “finance sector” of the Federal government (agencies that make loans, guarantee borrower repayment, securitize loans or are financial services regulators).? Hilltop has access to GSA’s Financial and Business Services (FABS) contract 520 SINs #2, 3, 7, 11 and 18 (Hilltop Advisors GSA information is shown below) which deal with a federal agency’s needs for financial management, asset management, risk management, budgeting, accounting, and auditing services.Hilltop has a number of subcontracts with a number of large and small disadvantaged consulting firms. Where appropriate, Hilltop Federal Services is a teaming partner with Hilltop Advisors and/or Hilltop Government Solutions (HGS) to be able to bring the right resources and type of services to our Federal agency clients.We carry our credit analysis capabilities into the governmental agency arena, as well as, our regulatory compliance skills.?? Important to the Federal government is its focus on Credit Reform.? We have a number of consultants who have extensive experience with Credit Reform’s implementation, compliance and required calculations of loss reserves.?? Like the lenders, government agencies exposed to credit risk are expected to monitor and record reserves for such risk exposures.? Similarly, conducting “material loss reviews” or performing “shared loss” calculations?is a requirement for these federal agencies.The Federal “financial sector”?agencies are those that are involved in direct lending, “guaranteeing/insuring” the repayment of loans made by banks or lenders, securitize the resulting loans and regulate/oversee the financial services industry.? The following is a summary of the?government agencies that we consider in this segment are as follows:Direct Lending EducationFarm Credit AdminDOE (Energy)Other programs in various agenciesGuarantee/insure the repayment of loans made by banks and lenders FHAVASBAGuarantee mortgage securitizations or issuers/servicers Fannie MaeFreddie MacGinnie MaeFederal Home Loan BanksFarmer MacProvide oversight/regulation of banks and other financial services entities: OCCFDICCFPBFEDTreasuryFHAVAGinnie MaeSBAof EnergyEducationof AgricultureGSEsOthersWe provide most of the same types of services to these Federal agencies as we do for the financial services companies (See “Our Services”).? Credit risk analysis and compliance capabilities are generally more important to these governmental agencies.? Like the lenders, government agencies exposed to credit risk are expected to monitor and record reserves for such credit risk exposures.? We have a number of consultants who have extensive experience with Credit Reform’s implementation (including compliance and required calculations of loss reserves).? Similarly, conducting “material loss reviews” or performing “shared loss” calculations has been completed for several agencies by our team members.All of the above agencies have monumental tasks in defining, proposing and enforcing regulations, to ensure the stability and transparency of financial markets, notwithstanding making new loans.? Hilltop Federal Services’ team?has a deep understanding of these?agencies’?critical missions and also understands the business and risks related to the financial services companies.All of the Hilltop companies have teamed with large consulting/accounting firms including Booz Allen, Capco, CapGemini, CohnReznick, IBM, KPMG, PwC and disadvantaged small business companies including ISN, Unissant, iWorks and others.Our Federal GSA contract information between GSA and Hilltop Advisors LLC is summarized below:Hilltop Advisors LLCGSA Contract #: GS23F0039XTIN: 20-3281607DUNS: 860005904,Under the Professional Services Schedule 520, Hilltop Advisors is approved for contracts using the following Special Item Numbers (SINs):SIN 520.2???????? Transaction SpecialistsSIN 520.3???????? Due Diligence and Support ServicesSIN 520.7???????? Financial and Performance AuditsSIN 520.11?????? AccountingSIN 520.17?????? Risk Assessment and Mitigation ServicesWe are approved to perform due diligence and financial advisory work for government agencies (SINs 2 and 3) because we have been involved in loan/asset sales for the FDIC, HUD, Ginnie Mae, SBA and Education during our collective careers.?? We are also heavily involved in corporate/asset acquisitions conducted in the financial services industry.? We understand the process and the requirements to execute a successful sale (from both the seller’s and buyer’s perspectives).Our accounting and audit approval for GSA contracts reflects the overall skills in these areas that The Hilltop Companies brings to bear.? Likewise, our heavy focus on the risk management area within the financial services and real estate industries, carries over into the government financial sector agencies. HYPERLINK "" Our Services?are described in more detail in that section of our website.? Please HYPERLINK "" contact Hilltop if there is a need that you have that is not listed as we may be able to assist.Hilltop Accounting Hilltop Accounting is a AICPA and Virginia state registered CPA firm.? We provide services to companies of all sizes and industry types.? Hilltop Accounting has five main lines of business: CFO and Controller services, fraud investigations and vulnerability assessments, litigation support, special reviews and accounting systems.Our CFO/Controller services?are targeted to small and medium sized companies that need some higher-level experience (but often do not need a full-time resource).? These services include providing business plans and budgets, cost accounting (Federal contracts and business costing), forecasts for operational results and cashflows/liquidity of our clients’ business, for calculations of damages, penalties or settlements, valuation and accounting technical advisory needs.? Companies that are reporting to shareholders, regulators, lenders, etc. may also need help on financial reporting (especially companies that are considering public debt or equity offerings.? Given our financial services experience, we can also assist a client with lenders’ credit applications and disclosures (both at time of the loan application as well as ongoing annual reporting). ?Our team has a strong audit background which facilitates our ability to assist with audit preparation, accounting discussions with the auditor or assistance with assembling the financial statements. Our resources are either CPAs or very experienced accountants and have performed such services for other companies.Fraud investigations and vulnerability assessments are a key part of our overall business.? Given the number of frauds that occur in the financial services industry, our Fraud team has worked with our industry accountants/consultants on such engagements.? Hilltop has deep experience with conducting vulnerability assessments.? If a fraud is suspected, we can immediately but discretely execute our fraud investigation protocols.? The fraud process includes calculating the amount of fraud loss/damages that resulted from the identified fraud. ?Our controls consulting team usually will assist with identifying the control weaknesses related to the suspected fraud and establish “remediation” efforts to ensure no further fraud damages can occur.? We have worked with many law enforcement agencies and technology providers (who typically are prepared to copy/review all systems data, email, paper, etc.).?? Our Fraud team can also help a company with the design, implementation and execution of fraud preventive and detective controls.Hilltop’s litigation support?can include helping identify data, documents, technology and people that Counsel should consider in preparing for the litigation effort.? We can also simply provide financial and operational consultants to assist the client with gathering and analyzing information that will support their case.? We can assist a client with research, analysis and “special procedures” that may support a particular point to be made by counsel.? Litigation support also includes Hilltop providing Expert testimony and/or critique of the opposing side’s Expert report and testimony.? Hilltop’s Expert capabilities are to provide Expert reports and testimony for industry focused expertise, accounting, audit, controls, fraud, regulatory compliance and calculations (damages and other required calculations).Special reviews are provided when a client has a compliance, contractual or other requirement for an independent review to be completed.? Circumstances requiring such special reviews can include, but not be limited to: regulatory requirements, contract compliance, calculational accuracy of data or reports provided by our client to third parties, incentive compensation calculations, earn-out payments to previous sellers under a purchase agreement, purchase price adjustments, etc.? Reviews may also include assessing the design of financial and operating controls, performing controls testing and reporting results to Management or the Board/Audit Committee.? ?Special reviews may also be conducted by Hilltop as part of a Client’s Internal Audit efforts (especially if industry expertise is required).Hilltop’s consulting team assists our accountants with identifying/documenting business requirements when a client is interested in a new Accounting systems.? We can create the system Request for Proposal, conduct the vendor selection and help with the implementation or configuration of the chosen accounting and other financial systems (most systems all require transfer of data from the old to new system, require selection of settings, set up reports, etc. in this stage of the new system implementation). HYPERLINK "" Our Services?are described in more detail in that section of our website.? Please HYPERLINK "" contact Hilltop if there is a need that you have that is not listed as we may be able to assist.Hilltop iSolutions Hilltop iSolutions (iSolutions) can assist your company with enhancing the deployment, controls and efficiency of your technology and data applications.?? Hilltop iSolutions provides technology consulting services to all types and sizes of companies.? iSolutions has four lines of business which include the following:aligning a client’s business strategy with its deployed technology and helping consider new technologies (specialized applications, eNotes, MERS, MISMO data standards, workflow, machine learning/Big Data, blockchain, etc.),identifying and implementing the right technology solutions for your business (compliance, accounting, lending, modeling, loan portfolio analytics, fraud, secondary marketing, loan servicing, other “add on” applications, etc.),integrating business processes, applications and data (ensuring that the right integration resources and tools are being used) and testing the results (assessing the opportunity for cost savings by using different technology or the same technology in a more efficient approach),helping with assessing and mitigating IT and data risks (iSolutions is the right independent review firm to help assess your data and IT controls using our IT audit skills).Our differentiator is that iSolutions’ technology consulting services blend our business and technology perspectives to enable our clients to be more effective and efficient, while maintaining strong controls and being in compliance.? Our delivery teams include both industry experienced business and technology consultants.? We are independent consulting firm (i.e. no affiliations with a software or database provider) and can assist with making an “unbiased” decision.Aligning a client’s strategy with its deployed and future technology applications must be completed in order to ensure that your technology applications will support your business and provide cost savings.? iSolutions can help a client with assessing whether a corporate business strategy can be supported by either its’ current or potential offerings for technology applications.? Our efforts here are focused on whether the technology support exists or would need to be built/custom coded.? Once it is determined that the technology exists or can be built – the next set of efforts to define the business requirements begins.Identifying and implementing the right technology solutions for your business is a critical step to avoiding mistakes that require material amounts of time and expense to rectify such.? Hilltop believes that it starts with a strategy and is followed by a complete assessment of business requirements for such strategy.? iSolutions can assist with completing the requirements, creating the RFP, managing the RFP distribution and vendor selection process, helping with application implementation and changing operating/financial processes to maximize the new system’s capabilities.? Hilltop’s industry experience is important when a client is selecting particular systems that target regulatory compliance, accounting, lending, modeling, loan portfolio analytics, fraud detection, secondary marketing, loan servicing, etc.? iSolutions can also assess a client’s usage of available technology/data applications such as MERS, MISMO, eNotes, workflow, data analytics, GSE tools, etc.Integrating Applications, Data & Business Processes is critical to the automation of the process and the success of the technology application.? Integration is not just about coding so that applications can “talk to each other”.? iSolutions defines “integration” as integrating a client’s applications, data and processes to create an efficient and effective business transaction (beginning to end).Here are several “integration” engagements that iSolutions and other Hilltop companies have helped clients and vendors with:implementing the new GSEs’ applications (Day One Certainty and the Loan Advisor Suite),adding real workflow (not document flow) to origination processes to help identify riskier loans and process such differently, to streamline less risky loans, to limit the staff’s own work steps that are not part of the client’s approved process, to identify compliance or control exceptions, etc.helping reduce the number of QC or Compliance personnel by adding effective tools to identify exceptions as they occur (not at a later point in the cycle),using eMortgage technology more aggressively to eliminate paper, andclarifying the responsibility for data quality and implementing tools to assess overall data integrity and safety/privacy.Assessing and mitigating IT and data risks?is an on-going effort for both new and existing applications.? Our IT and Data controls auditors are independent and can provide an unbiased view of the IT and data risks that exist, mitigating factors and possible exposures.? Our CISA/IT auditors often assist Internal Audit teams with ongoing audits of general and application controls (especially if the application is lending or servicing specific and requires an understanding of the input, throughput and output to be expected.? iSolutions helps clients with assessing and mitigating risks as follows:Data controls (design, implementation, testing and remediation) relating to data integrity, governance, privacy compliance, regulatory requirements, etc.,IT general and application controls (design, implementation, testing and remediation),Cyber security and Fraud vulnerability (design, implementation, testing and remediation),Business Continuity Planning (design, implementation, testing and remediation).Risk management typically involves the “three lines of defense”.? A company’s IT department should do testing of controls to provide “the first line of defense”.? iSolutions can provide either the “second line of defense” (a QC type role) and/or assist your External or Internal Audit teams in performing the “third line of defense” efforts. HYPERLINK "" Our Services?are described in more detail in that section of our website.? Please HYPERLINK "" contact Hilltop if there is a need that you have that is not listed as we may be able to assist.Hilltop Government Solutions Hilltop Government Solutions (HGS) provides outsourcing or staff augmentation services to various Federal agencies and Prime Federal contractors.?? These services typically require minimal specialized education, certifications or significant industry experience but are critical to assist our client agencies that need operating support. ? Currently, HGS has a large contract as a subcontractor to provide process outsourcing of the FHA foreclosure claim reviews. ??This engagement team is based in Oklahoma City, Okla. ??Our staff augmentation services will typically include basic accounting assistance, performing reconciliations, some clerical functions, loan file organization, project administration (lower level assistance), etc. HYPERLINK "" Our Services?are described in more detail in that section of our website.? Please HYPERLINK "" contact Hilltop if there is a need that you have that is not listed as we may be able to assist.Hilltop Advisory Partners Hilltop Advisory Partners provides consulting and accounting advisory services to the real estate and hospitality companies.? Hilltop Advisory will team with Meany & Oliver (a woman owned commercial real estate leasing and sales firm) when real estate transaction assistance and/or a broker price opinion is needed. ?The combined team provides strong financial capabilities, technology assistance, special reviews (lease calculations, cost allocations, etc.), accounting for leases (new accounting requirements in 2018-19), market surveys and other consulting duties (i.e. managing a specific project).?? Meany & Oliver provides our respective clients with all of the typical real estate brokerage capabilities.? Our typical types of engagements include:Accounting for the real estate investment – at the property level, the partnership level (usually multiple properties), the MLP (often a publicly traded partnership that holds many properties), or as a syndicated/securitized realizable Value accounting discussions?involve determining?the recoverable value of the real estate for accounting purposes (we often work with you and your auditors to resolve differences on this issue),Reporting to multiple investors, partners, banks, etc. – this requires planning and proper data accumulation to be able to report on all of the required items per partnership or operating agreements, syndication/securitization documents, bank covenant requirements, etc.,Assistance to asset managers in the accounting oversight, reporting assessment and/or property manager performance assessment,“Roll ups” of the accounting or tax results for hundreds of properties and/or partnerships often requires a significant understanding of the transactions, owner relationships, and the payment priorities required, Tax planning and return preparation is a significant effort for all real estate based partnerships,Tax component itemization is a technique used to depreciate buildings differently i.e. as components that have shorter lives than the building itself,Assistance with identifying, selecting and implementing technology applications used by the property managers or asset managers.? Our team is well versed in all of the major real estate technology tools including MRI, Timberline, ProCalc, Argus, CoStar, Loopnet, Zillow, etc.Given our significant credit experience with the banks, we are well aware of the bank’s perspective on troubled loans and negotiating strategies.? Accordingly, we have helped our real estate clients with planning, assessing alternatives and proposing “work outs”.Assistance with preparing commercial loan applications and creating presentations that the banker will understand, appreciate and depend on if we are involved as an independent party.Perform financial, operational and/or technology assessments of efficiency, cost, turn times, risk, etc.Hilltop Advisory brings the best real estate and credit resources to our real estate clients who may need to address debt or equity capital needs and alternatives.? Our real estate professionals have deep industry knowledge of the debt and equity markets (especially REITs). HYPERLINK "" Our Services?are described in more detail in that section of our website. ?Please HYPERLINK "" contact Hilltop if there is a need that you have that is not listed as we may be able to assist.Executive Leadership Geoffrey A. Oliver (Jeff) CPA, CFF, CMB?is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of?the various Hilltop companies. Prior to founding Hilltop Advisors in 2005, Jeff held senior leadership positions with KPMG, LLP and BearingPoint, Inc. for 29-years providing accounting, audit and consulting services.? Jeff has served financial services, real estate, and government agency?clients in the accounting, regulatory compliance, audit and consulting areas throughout his career.? Jeff also specializes in fraud, forensics, investigations and providing Expert and support services for client litigation matters.? He is a noted industry expert, a frequent conference?speaker and has a large network of senior industry contacts.Nigel Brazier?has 30 years of experience in the mortgage finance market (where he held senior leadership positions at GE Mortgage, Select Portfolio Services (Fairbanks Capital), Fannie Mae and Vantium Capital) and has had positions in finance, mergers & acquisitions, risk management and operations management (much of which while he was at GE for 12 years).? Nigel has deployed his finance, risk and operations management experience as a consultant.? His consulting engagements have focused on mortgage servicing issues (including consulting on default activities, loss mitigation, OCC consent orders, MSR strategy & acquisition, litigation support).? Nigel joined Hilltop Advisors in 2014.Don Davis?has 35+ years in?mortgage loan servicing and specializes in the Default servicing area.?? Don has specific claims expertise and understands the allowable fees/costs that can be claimed. He has servicing regulatory compliance given his involvement with the OCC Consent Order work plus other compliance related litigation work.? Don has had senior positions at Wells Fargo,?1st?Nationwide, Foster Mortgage?and Ben Franklin Savings.? He has been involved with servicing technology providers for residential and multifamily customers.? Don has significant experience with making/recovering servicing advances and?minimizing partial or full foreclosure claim denials.? Don joined Hilltop Advisors in 2013.Troy Knowlton?joined Hilltop Advisors in 2014. He has over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services Industry with particular focus on the GSEs. ?Troy was with Fannie Mae’s National Servicing Organization, Single Family Finance and Data Warehousing groups. ?Troy brings a broad skill set with an emphasis on databases, leveraging data and analysis, using tools to assess the data integrity and ensuring that the data and analyses completed meet the business needs.? Troy has extensive project management experience and has led several large projects.? Troy has strong risk assessment capabilities, understands the importance of controls, knows how to implement and test remediation processes.Manny Lakshman has over 30 years of experience in the financial industry and has provided consulting and audit guidance on risk management and regulatory compliance to many financial institutions. Manny has many perspectives having been a bank examiner, a compliance consultant and a financial services entity employee. Manny has designed and reviewed policies, procedures and processes associated with all aspects of a financial services company’s compliance with regulations including the oversight of the entity’s vendors’ compliance. He has performed “mock exam” reviews of the prevailing lener/server policies. Manny has consulted banks, mortgage lenders, mortgage servicers, Community Development Corporations (SBA Programs) and others relating to bank and non-bank regulatory requirements. Manny reviewed existing processes and procedures of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) to improve compliance audit efforts. He designed working questionnaires for the regulatory agency examiners to assist them in the evaluation of Credit Unions compliance process, procedures and practice. He was a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) examiner for banks and non-bank financial services companies to assess factors and causes of unsafe and unsound practices including violations of laws and regulations. At the FDIC, Manny developed policies and guidelines in accordance for FDIC’s Risk Sharing Asset Management Policies and Goals. He analyzed non-performing residential and commercial loan workouts, foreclosures, sales auctions, discharge and charge-off loans to ensure that the losses incurred under the Risk-Sharing program were appropriate. He was also involved in many bank closures and was responsible for operations, asset assessment and sale thereof. Manny has been involved in conducting forensic activities and fraud investigations of financial irregularities. He has extensive experience with investigation of evidence of fraud through Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR’s) and other available evidence. Manny has reviewed safe practices and compliance with AML/BSA Acts for many banks and other financial services entities.Thomas Makara is a Manager who has a 34 year career in managing financial systems development (SAP, Hyperion, etc.), integration and operational support. He also has extensive experience in managing the business continuity planning (Disaster Recovery) for supply chain systems. Tom has been a consultant and internal Project Manager for multiple global SAP and related systems implementations. His teams focused on requirements, testing, training and implementation. He has also led supply chain projects from both business and technology perspectives and successfully partnered with multiple business and IT teams to successfully consolidate 14 ordering systems for 85 countries into a single SAP process for MCI/Verizon. Tom’s team has defined and implemented the security structure and roles (security permissions and the ability to set and change such permissions across Verizon) for SAP Sales and Distribution among other applications. Tom has also been involved in numerous testing, creating use cases and creating a quality control process for many projects including a major FP&A project which supported 4,000+ test cases and the associated management reporting. Tom is very familiar with the use of SharePoint in project management.Tim McDaniel, CPA is a seasoned professional with experience in public accounting, internal audit and consulting engagements. He has strong industry experience as follows: mortgage banking, capital markets, broker dealers among others. Tim has been a project manager for large compliance, SOX, operational projects that included process improvement, process mapping, controls and compliance assessments, risk assessment, due diligence, forensic accounting, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, etc. Tim performed comprehensive regulatory audits of mortgage servicing operations and servicer default compliance for the Making Home Affordable Program’s top nine servicers (multi-year engagement). Tim was responsible for audit planning, fieldwork and reporting of findings and observations for the MHA project to the U.S. Treasury Department. Tim was involved with Freddie Mac’s Internal Control Office in performing walk-throughs, documenting process & procedures, developing test scripts and performing SOX 404. Tim also performed as interim assistant to the Controller for Freddie Mac’s Investment & Capital Markets division where he was responsible for preparation of the quarterly documentation for Investment & Capital Market’s business processes and SOX compliance activities (management assertions). He has performed business acquisitions and reviewed variable interest entities at Municipal Mortgage and Equity, LLC for purpose of proper application of accounting principles including FIN 46, FAS 140, APB 18, ARB 51 and various EITF issues. He led the financial restatement of RG Premier Bank and RG Mortgage. Tim has been responsible for managing financial and operational reviews of companies to assess business process improvement opportunities, especially with respect to financial functions – accounting, reporting, controls, compliance, special regulatory reports, etc.Dan McLaughlin?was a founder of MERS and was the architect of the MERS??System, the MERS??Commercial System and the MERS??eRegistry.? ?He has been redesigning business processes and integrating new technologies in the mortgage banking industry for more than 30 years at MERS, banks, mortgage lenders, etc.? He has extensive knowledge of loan recordation requirements, eMortgage concepts, eNote adoption strategies and developing and operating mortgage loan registries. ?Dan leads Hilltop’s data solutions efforts (data integrity, privacy compliance, security/cyber security), IT general and application controls assessments and managing application implementations (lending, secondary, servicing, accounting and other applications).?? Dan joined Hilltop Advisors in 2015.John Mendonca?joined Hilltop Advisors in April 2014 as a Managing Director. He is a retired KPMG audit partner who has practiced accounting and auditing for more than 37 years.? His experience includes providing financial statement audits, audits of internal controls, initial public offerings, performing fraud assessments, and due diligence services. His clients have included real estate, technology, services and manufacturing companies on a global basis.? John leads the client engagements for our accounting practice (Hilltop Accounting).? John provides technical guidance on accounting and audit matters.? He assists with all specialty audit services, fraud assessments, litigation support and special accounting/audit projects (temporary CFO efforts, forensic projects, investigations, etc.).Patricia Venn, CPA is a Director with Hilltop Advisors, LLC. She has spent most of her career working in the financial services industry and has extensive experience in all facets of the primary and secondary mortgage markets. Her core skills include operational consulting, compliance assessments, transaction assessments, auditing, accounting and designing/implementing/testing internal controls solutions for new policies/processes and technology implementations. Specific engagement experience includes assessing/modifying/remediating issues in the loan origination process area, new technology applications, capital markets/securitization processes, investor payments and reporting, securities accounting and reconciliation/investor reporting, mortgage servicing (primary, special, master servicer experience) processes, mortgage origination and servicing regulatory compliance, compliance with investor requirements including PSAs, identifying business requirements design and implementation, Multifamily operations and loan servicing for one of the GSEs, credit risk management counterparty risk management assessments. As a CPA, Pat has extensive experience in the finance, accounting, auditing and the specialty audit arena (M&A, fraud, compliance audits and internal controls). She held various positions including Chief Financial Officer for various companies, was a Manager in a public accounting firm, worked in Internal Audit at Fannie Mae and held various accounting positions in large private companies.Lisa Watson is a Senior Manager in our accounting and compliance audit practice and has performed in the following areas: internal audit, internal controls, budgets, finance, contract accounting, supply chain management, litigation support and grant management consulting work. She has extensive experience working with the U.S. Federal Government. Engagements include providing audit remediation support to the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) related to establishing accrual and validation methodologies for the thousands of Public Housing Agencies funded by the U.S. government. Her experience includes developing audit programs in accordance with Government Auditing Standards, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Federal Accounting Standards, as applicable, and in accordance with Government Auditing Standards, Financial Audit Manual, and OMB Circulars to ensure compliance with all applicable terms, laws and regulations of all Federal, State, and Local government agencies. She has conducted A-123 Internal Control audits and A-133 or Single Audits. As the Manager of Compliance and Internal Audit, Lisa has developed a risk assessment model for preparing the annual audit plan. She developed standard audit procedures for validating and evaluating distributors/vendors compliance with contract terms to ensure consistent, thorough and fair reviews of vendors. As the Deputy Director of Fiscal Compliance at the Legal Services Corporation, Watson led an Office of Compliance & Enforcement team in developing processes and procedures for reviewing and identifying waste, fraud, and abuse of federal funds.?Hilltop also has a number of Subject Matter and Marketing Consultants who assist Hilltop at various times to meet our client needs:Iliana Ghanem?is in?mortgage finance business and is an expert on the GSE operations.? She has created, built, and led high performing customer facing marketing organizations, led the design and implementation of complex strategic initiatives. ?Iliana was a Freddie Mac Vice President of sales for all customer segments in the Single Family business for 23 years.? Her role involved managing market share, profitability, resource management, and operating costs for the sales area. ?Robert Hunter is the Principal of Shannon Hunter Consultants and has collaborated with Hilltop on numerous occasions.? He has a deep credit risk management and credit governance background.? He has written many policies and processes. ?Bob has revised loan loss reserve methodology, recommended loan administration changes, analyzed and revised portfolio credit scoring models.? Bob has been a litigation expert to critique loan underwriting and credit policy compliance.? He has assessed the Quality Control effectiveness of mortgage lenders and identified compliance exceptions.?? Bob is an industry leader given the experience with the secondary market operations, valuations, reps and warranty violations, credit analytics and loss modeling.Alta Jones has over 30 years of experience as a CFO and Controller of major mortgage lending/servicing companies like RFC Capital Markets, Norwest Mortgage (now Wells Fargo), and Dominion Bancshares.? She has extensive financial management and reporting experience, including the system tools that can be used to facilitate such.? Alta has participated in strategy, M&A, corporate financial planning, budgeting, and has been the project manager for many process and system change?efforts at her various employers.Stephen McGurl is the Principal of McGurl Risk Advisors, LLC and has been a Managing Director of Hilltop Advisors.? During his 29 years in the mortgage industry, Mr. McGurl has been involved as a subject matter expert in several systems replacement and transformation initiatives and has driven innovation from the business operations perspective.? He has extensive experience in all mortgage industry business processes – origination, secondary marketing and servicing.? He has also been heavily involved in the regulatory compliance aspects of the mortgage business. He is the owner and lead consultant on numerous compliance engagements related to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reviews, Mortgage Quality Control reviews, Customer Tax Document policy & procedure reviews and Servicing File Transfer reviews.George Schwartz?has over 25 years of?mortgage loan servicing as both a primary servicer and subservicer.? George has had senior positions at?Countrywide, Cenlar, Fannie Mae and ServiceLink.? He has extensive experience in all areas of the servicing business – customer facing, investor reporting and accounting, default,?REO?and regulatory/investor compliance.?? George also?has?extensive due diligence experience?on corporate entities, servicing platforms and MSRs being purchased.??George has strong ties to all aspects of the loan servicing business – investors, technology providers, outsourcing vendors, and has specifically assisted in selecting, establishing vendor service levels and oversight of vendors (which is a growing requirement of the CFPB and other regulators).?????Clients We Serve Hilltop is only as good as our people!? Our professionals’ expertise is focused (we do not try to be everything to every client).? Hilltop has significant depth (we have a growing full time team and have employed over 450 project based (on-call) employees during our 12-year history.? Our professionals have industry experience and/or have provided accounting, audit or consulting services to our targeted industry segments for many years.?? Our professionals average 14 years of experience so they know our clients’ business.? Hilltop’s biggest differentiator from our competitors is that we utilize our multi-disciplined professionals differently i.e. we combine our professionals with deep industry knowledge and professionals with strong functional skills/experience (accounting, auditing, operations and technology consulting) on our engagements.? Our clients benefit from this approach because our engagement team knows the client’s business and the unique aspects of their industry while bringing functional skills to meet the engagement requirements.Each of the companies in the Hilltop group are targeted to a specific client segment or specific functional needs (accounting, finance, auditing, compliance, compliance, M&A, litigation, etc.) of our clients as follows: HYPERLINK "" Our Accounting and iSolutions firms work with clients of the other companies but have also worked with clients in the following businesses:Non-profit organizations,Consulting firms,Law firms,Technology/software companies,Government contracting companies,High tech companies,Sports organizations,Retail entities, andOthers?Banks and Credit Unions Hilltop financial institution clients include some of the largest banks and credit unions in the United States.? ?Our client base also includes many mid-tier and community banks and all sizes of credit unions.? Hilltop primarily focuses on the following areas of our commercial bank and credit union clients:Loans – helping our clients with all aspects including policies/procedures, valuation, loan ratings, reserves, accounting for loan and lease losses (ALLL), risk management, operational assessments and cost of managing such loans: Commercial & Industrial,Commercial Real Estate,SBA loans,Multifamily mortgages,Residential mortgages,Home Equity mortgages and lines of credit,Reverse mortgages (including HECMs),Consumer loans (personal, auto, boat, etc.),Student loans,Lines of credit, andAll other lending instruments.Investments – helping our clients with all aspects including policies/procedures, valuation, accounting, risk management, operational assessments and cost of managing such investments: mortgage and asset backed private label securities,Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac issued securities,Ginnie Mae securities,REMICs,CMOs, CLOs, CDOs, etc.,Other securitized instruments,Derivatives,REIT shares, andMost other investments.Regulatory compliance – helping our clients with policies/procedures that ensure the entity is in compliance with regulatory requirements, identify compliance risks, assisting with mitigation/remediation activities, preparing for and/or dealing with examiners, providing mock exams (testing regulatory controls), etc.Fraud vulnerability assessments and investigations – helping identify whether a fraud has or can occur in key areas.Our clients include 5 of the Top 10 largest banks, 19 of the Top 50 banks and 31 of the Top 100 banks.? We have provided services to over 200 banks that are $10 billion in assets and smaller.Mortgage Banking Companies Many mortgage banking companies are owned by banks but Hilltop also focuses on the non-bank owned mortgage entities which perform all or most of the same business functions that bank-owned mortgage entities do. ?One aspect that smaller companies deal with is “outsourcing” specific functions of the mortgage life cycle (loan servicing is a common example) is where we help our clients select, monitor and even test compliance at these vendors/business counterparties. Hilltop has deep experience in the mortgage banking industry and we don’t have a minimum client or engagement size like many large consulting/accounting firms do.? Yet Hilltop’s professionals are all former employees of large banks, the Big 4 accounting or large consulting firms and/or the regulatory agencies and GSEs.Hilltop and our professionals have served over 350 mortgage banking clients. ................
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