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40 Under 40: Craft3's Adam Zimmerman

Cathy Cheney | Portland Business Journal

Adam Zimmerman, Craft3

Staff Portland Business Journal

Editor's note: The Portland Business Journal handed out its 40 Under 40 awards Feb. 14. The following profile appeared in the Feb. 15 issue of our paper. Videos and a photo gallery of all the winners are available here.[1]

Adam Zimmerman[2], executive vice president, Craft3

Age: 37.

What your organization does: Craft3 is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with $166 million under management. We offer capital products to businesses, nonprofit organizations and consumers throughout Washington and Oregon. We focus our investing on borrowers that strengthen economic, environmental and family resilience in Pacific Northwest communities.

Your responsibilities: Management of our consumer lending business line and our branding and communications strategy.

Objects you brought to the photo shoot, and why: Craft3 puts stuff together. We work with our borrowers to build their visions, often in ways that other financial institutions aren’t able to do. I rescued this hammer from my grandfather’s tool bench after he died. It’s my household hammer, and an indispensable tool for all the building projects that go on around my 100-year-old house.

Native of: Milton-Freewater, Ore.

Hot topic in your field: Community development finance has its roots in the 1960s and the civil rights movement, in finding ways to get capital to people and places ignored by the existing system. My generation is fortunate enough to have been mentored by our movement’s founders. Those folks are starting to retire now, and we are busy thinking about what’s next. What does version 2.0 look like for CDFIs?

References

  1. ^ are available here (www.bizjournals.com)
  2. ^ Adam Zimmerman (feeds.bizjournals.com)
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