About


Our Mission

To go the extra mile to help financial institutions achieve the best possible outcome for cardholders’ financial health. We deliver the data-driven insight, and work together as partners, to develop a strategic plan for success.

Why Advisors Plus

Engagement

We genuinely listen and encourage open discussion. We study, research and analyze to consistently provide financial institutions with usable value and recommendations.

Focus

We are the specialist in the financial industry. Community financial institutions remain our primary focus.

Knowledge and Experience

We bring together a team of experts with years of experience as practitioners in various disciplines.

Leadership

We guide your team and provide a strategy to help you achieve your goals.

Integrity

We act with honor and truthfulness, and take pride in maintaining data-driven recommendations.

Service

We keep the promises we make. We deliver high quality results and recommendations.

Our Expertise

Advisors Plus works with community banks and financial institutions to help them meet their business challenges. Our consultants create insightful, data-driven financial and marketing solutions that lead the industry in measurable results.

Consulting

To remain competitive, you need a proven partner to provide powerful insights that can increase your bottom line. The Advisors Plus team of financial industry veterans represents the most effective option to analyze your card programs’ performance and risk exposure, as well as ensure efficiency across collections and internal card operation models.

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Marketing

Advisors Plus marketing supplements your branch sales and internal financial institution efforts to maximize your results without the need for in-house, data-driven resources.

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Meet Our Team

At Advisors Plus, our team stands ready to partner with your organization to help you meet your most challenging objectives. Our consultants bring decades of combined experience to the table, and have the thought leadership and analytical expertise to help you remain an institution of choice for consumers.

Whether your financial institution is looking for new ways to attract and retain customers, build a legacy of community involvement, create strong capital footing, or all of the above, the Advisors Plus team turns your goals into a reality.

Norman C. Patrick, Jr.

VP
Advisors Plus Consulting

Norman C. Patrick, Jr.

VP
Advisors Plus Consulting

npatrick@pscu.com (727) 299-2523

Norman C. Patrick, Jr. leads the overall Consulting practice at Advisors Plus, utilizing his 25+ years of expertise in the areas of payments and business strategy.

Drawing on his experience managing one of the largest debit card portfolios in the US, Norm originated the Advisors Plus Debit and Checking practice in 2007.

Today, by closely examining the profitability, functionality and positioning of a client’s debit card business, Norm helps financial institutions optimize complex portfolio details to achieve their big picture goals of increasing profitability and enhancing member satisfaction.

Norm also builds on his background in project management to work with financial institutions on business strategy engagements such as annual planning sessions and loan growth initiatives.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Norm was VP of National City Bank (now PNC Bank), where he held P & L and product development responsibilities for a portfolio of over 3.5 million consumer and small-business debit cards driving more than $250 million in annual revenue. Norm also has expertise in consumer loan operations through his management of project teams and loan servicing units at National City Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase).

Norm holds a B.B.A. in Business with a concentration in Finance from Cleveland State University, where he also completed MBA-level coursework. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and board meetings, is often cited in the press and serves on the faculty of the CUES School of Payments.

Jason Hortiz

Principal, Consultant Credit

Jason Hortiz

Principal, Consultant Credit

JHortiz@pscu.com (727) 561-7828

Jason Hortiz is a Principal Consultant with the Credit Card practice at Advisors Plus. Jason advises financial institutions on product development and ways to enhance portfolio growth and profitability through P&L analysis, product assessments, and industry benchmarking reviews.

A seasoned leader with 20+ years of experience in Card, Jason specializes in product management, new product development, secured and student card strategy, increasing portfolio profitability and strategic end-to-end analysis to help institutions capitalize on their competitive advantage.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Jason served as Head of Emerging Credit Card Products for PNC Bank where he led the launch of their successful cash rewards product and the development of the student and secured strategies. Prior to PNC, Jason spent 15 years at Bank of America in various product strategy roles.

Jason holds a B.S. and a M.S. in Public Administration from Wilmington University in Delaware.

Michelle H. Hillenbrand-Whale

Principal, Consultant
Credit

Michelle H. Hillenbrand-Whale

Principal, Consultant
Credit

mhillenbrand@pscu.com (727) 571-4555

Michelle Hillenbrand-Whale is a Principal, Strategic Consultant with the credit card practice at Advisors Plus. She advises credit unions on credit card portfolio growth, profitability, and marketing strategies.

Michelle has decades of experience in credit card portfolio management, including credit card sales, structuring of credit card products, and creating customized targeted promotions that produce positive measurable results. Before joining Advisors Plus in 2007, Michelle served as a VP and Manager of Credit Card at SunTrust (now Truist) and as an AVP at Bank One (now Chase).

Michelle holds a B.A. in Communications from Kent State University and is an accomplished leader with over 30 years of leading teams and managing multiple partnerships. She has extensive leadership training and accreditations, and digital marketing and data management certifications. In addition, Michelle is a frequent speaker and writer for industry related events.

Kari Anne Arnosk

Principal, Consultant
Debit

Kari Anne Arnosk

Principal, Consultant
Debit

karnosk@pscu.com (727) 299-2439

Kari Anne Arnosk is Director of Debit Consulting at Advisors Plus. She works with financial institution clients to create the most effective strategies for maximizing their checking and debit card portfolio growth. She has a passion for researching trends in the financial services industry and using those proprietary findings to help her clients stay ahead of the curve with customized solutions to meet their business goals.

Kari Anne’s unique expertise within Advisors Plus is in working alongside a client’s internal team to analyze debit P & L statements, review the personal and business checking continuum, evaluate growth metrics and understand the competitive marketplace to provide comprehensive but targeted recommendations to maximize growth and deepen relationships.

Kari Anne joined Advisors Plus after serving as VP and Senior Product Manager at Key Bank, where she managed a $14.0 billion corporate deposit portfolio and implemented new product solutions for commercial deposit growth opportunities. Prior to her tenure at Key Bank, she was a VP at National City (now part of PNC Bank) where she grew one of the largest debit card portfolios in the US and developed expertise in branch management and small business lending.

Kari Anne holds a B.A. in Business from Kent State University and an MBA from Baldwin-Wallace College.

Christopher D. Joy

Principal, Consultant
Credit

Christopher D. Joy

Principal, Consultant
Credit

cjoy@pscu.com (727) 299-2544

Christopher D. Joy is a Principal Consultant with the Credit Card practice at Advisors Plus. Chris advises credit unions on issues involving portfolio growth, profitability enhancement, member reward programs, and the competitive and regulatory environments.

Chris has earned an industry-wide reputation for creating balanced, effective and credit union-centric credit card portfolio solutions for his clients. His 30+ years of experience in managing, growing and optimizing credit card portfolios provides unique insight when assisting clients in the highly competitive credit card marketplace.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Chris served as VP and Manager of Portfolio Profitability for National City Bank (now PNC Bank) and as a financial analyst with Bank One (now Chase). Both organizations were in the top 20 US credit card issuers by loan volume.

Chris holds a BBA in Business Administration from Ohio University. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and is often cited in financial institutions publications. Chris also serves on the faculty of the CUES School of Payments.

Katie Kean

Principal, Consultant
Credit

Katie Kean

Principal, Consultant
Credit

kkean@pscu.com (727) 299-2158

Katie Kean is Director of Credit Consulting for Advisors Plus. Katie provides financial institutions with the critical business intelligence needed to drive portfolio optimization and growth based on insights gained through competitive analysis, industry and peer benchmarking, product set assessments and projecting the impact of new technology.

As an accomplished leader with over two decades of experience in financial services, Katie excels at enhancing portfolio profitability and member experience through technological innovation, strategic thinking and deep-dive market analysis.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Katie served as VP of Strategic Services and VP of Finance for PNC Bank where she conceptualized strategy and created comprehensive solutions to jumpstart portfolio profitability and growth.

Katie holds a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Law, as well as an MBA and graduate degree in Enterprise Systems from Central Michigan University. She has been an adjunct professor of Finance & Law at Western Michigan University.

Bradley J. Wylie

Principal, Consultant
Credit

Bradley J. Wylie

Principal, Consultant
Credit

bwylie@pscu.com (727) 556-2352

Bradley J. Wylie is Director of Credit Consulting for Advisors Plus. Brad advises credit unions on issues involving portfolio growth and profitability enhancement; portfolio repositioning and re-pricing; product set assessments and competitive analysis, industry/peer benchmarking and portfolio acquisition/divestiture.

Brad is an expert on credit card partnerships, including affinity card programs, co-branded cards and the creation and structuring of credit card reward programs. His 30+ years of experience conducting portfolio valuation analyses, managing RFP and due diligences processes, and creating and maintaining partnership agreements give him a unique perspective and skill set when working with clients in today’s post-CARD Act marketplace.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Brad served as a Director at First National Bank of Omaha, President of the Credit Union Card Association at Wescom Central Credit Union and SVP for Business Card Products at National City Bank (now part of PNC Bank).

Brad holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Capital University. He has served on the Visa Small Business Executive Council.

Tom Bennett

Principal, Consultant
Debit

Tom Bennett

Principal, Consultant
Debit

tbennett@pscu.com (727) 318-6531

Tom Bennett is a Principal Consultant with the Checking and Debit Card practice at Advisors Plus. Tom advises financial institutions on ways to enhance portfolio growth and profitability through P & L and key metric performance analyses, competitive product assessments, and industry and peer benchmarking reviews. His combination of consulting knowledge and direct experience provides an informed and unique perspective to solve the challenges of our clients.

Tom has been in financial services for over 20 years. His career covers a variety of senior roles in consulting and banking managing deposits, debit cards, loans, online services and other key aspects of retail banking. Prior to joining Advisors Plus he was a senior consultant with Profit Insight, and prior to that held senior roles with SunTrust and Wachovia. His expertise spans product management, new product development, margin management, fee income management, product profitability, mergers and integration, research and analytics.

Tom graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science in Business. He completed the Executive Leadership Program at Kenan-Flagler Business School and is an Honors Graduate of the Graduate School of Retail Bank Management at the University of Virginia.

Sandra Patelis

Associate Consultant

Sandra Patelis

Associate Consultant

spatelis@pscu.com (623) 308-8172

Sandra Patelis is an associate consultant with Advisors Plus who works with card operations and servicing analysis reviews as well as PCF reviews. Her expertise is working with financial institutions on gaining efficiencies within their end-to-end operations and reviewing services, and settings for best practices towards a financial institution’s strategic needs.

Having worked with financial institutions for over 15 years, Sandra understands what it takes to build and maintain relationships. She demonstrates a natural ability to foster relationships, work effectively with others across organizational landscapes, build cross-functional partnerships for optimization, achieve goals and generate success.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Sandra worked as a learning professional for PSCU for 10 years specializing in credit card, debit card and prepaid card implementation training. As a training professional, Sandra served as a mentor to other learning professionals, as well as conducted comprehensive systems training to numerous financial institutions over the years. She provided various program learning to develop and enhance skills of our members’ employees and enhance the relationship with Owner financial institutions, and ultimately improve the success of their business. As a business consultant, Sandra continues to perform needs analysis, develop critical decision-making solutions based on the issues that arise while solidifying and maintaining strong Owner financial institution relationships.

Sandra has earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Eastern Michigan University and a master’s degree in Human Resources from Central Michigan. She has been an adjunct professor at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona and Cleary University in Howell, Michigan.

Mark Wallace

Senior Consulting Analyst

Mark Wallace

Senior Consulting Analyst

mwallace@pscu.com (727) 566-4042

Mark Wallace is a senior consulting analyst with Advisors Plus and has over 13 years of experience with PSCU. He has been a critical part in developing company-wide metrics reporting while also providing essential data analysis and support to the Strategic Consulting and Marketing Teams.

Mark brings a broad spectrum of experience with over 25 years supporting credit card issuers in a group service provider environment and more than 30 years in the credit card industry. He has worked with financial institutions to execute marketing campaigns, tracking results and providing insights and trends. He has managed product development and has extensive back-office experience in delinquency/charge-off reporting and forecasting. Throughout his career, Mark has worked with and advised all levels of institution management in different capacities. He has also managed analysts responsible for portfolio performance and operations reporting, and collaborated with other teams to address campaign and reporting needs.

As a consulting analyst with Advisors Plus, Mark utilizes his extensive knowledge of card processing and corresponding data built throughout his 30-year tenure in the industry. Mark excels at delivering in-depth, detailed data analysis and making it understandable and relatable, and is the key resource for Advisors Plus metrics and reporting.

Mark holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Evansville in Evansville, IN.

Matt Sammet

Consulting Analyst

Matt Sammet

Consulting Analyst

msammet@pscu.com (727) 571-4559

Matt Sammet is a Consulting Analyst for the Portfolio Alliance Consulting group of Advisors Plus. Since 2013, Matt has managed Advisors Plus Alliance relationships with various credit unions and has developed targeted campaigns designed to maximize credit card portfolio growth and profitability.

With 25 years of experience in the financial services and electronic payments industry, Matt brings expertise and best practices to achieve growth for his clients. Prior to joining Advisors Plus, Matt was a financial analyst at Vantiv, where he worked on cost accounting, portfolio analytics, Fiserv (formerly First Data) billing, new client and new product pricing, and invoicing.

Matt holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Southern Indiana and is a Certified Public Accountant. Matt resides in Evansville, Indiana.

Shannon King

Principal, Consultant
Credit

Shannon King

Principal, Consultant
Credit

ShaKing@pscu.com (919) 389-9918

Shannon King is a Principal Consultant with the Credit Card practice at Advisors Plus. Shannon advises financial institutions on ways to enhance portfolio growth and profitability through P&L analyses, competitive product assessments and industry/peer benchmarking reviews.

Shannon draws on her career spanning over 25 years in payments to assist financial institutions in defining and achieving strategic goals. Her career covers roles in business card strategy, consumer credit card acquisition and portfolio product management, debit and checking product management and portfolio risk management. Before joining Advisors Plus, she was a credit card product manager for PNC Bank for 12 years. Prior to that, held multiple product and risk management positions at BB&T (now Truist).

Shannon holds a BS in Business Administration with a focus on Managerial Accounting and an MBA from East Carolina University. She is a graduate of both the Visa and American Bankers Association Bankcard Schools.

Paige Watkins

Principal, Consultant
Strategic Consulting

Paige Watkins

Principal, Consultant
Strategic Consulting

pwatkins@pscu.com (315) 651-8306

Paige Watkins is a Principal Consultant with the strategic consulting practice at Advisors Plus. 

Before joining Advisors Plus, Paige served as the Vice President of Convenience Services at Reliant Community Federal Credit Union in New York, where she oversaw payment operations, digital banking, contact center and digital communication channels, investment services, and loan servicing. During her thirteen-year tenure at Reliant, she also held leadership roles in member experience, executive services, and board relations, as well as roles in marketing and human resources. Paige brings this broad experience to the credit unions she works with through Advisors Plus.

Paige holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, New York, and a Master’s of Business Administration from the State University of New York at Oswego. 

Jason Medick

VP, Marketing

Jason Medick

VP, Marketing

jmedick@pscu.com (515) 975-7992

Jason Medick is VP, Marketing at Advisors Plus. With over two decades of experience in marketing strategy, Jason excels in leveraging data-driven insights to shape marketing strategies and enhance the customer experience. Jason is deeply passionate about merging the precision of data analytics with his extensive background in marketing strategy to truly comprehend the voice of the consumer, resulting in member engagements that consistently yield positive Key Performance Indicator (KPI) measurements.

Before joining Advisors Plus, Jason held a pivotal role at Delta Dental as the Business Development and New Product Manager. In this capacity, he played a key role in developing new products and cultivating business relationships as well as spearheading Delta Dental's customer experience team, focusing on delivering an optimal end-to-end experience across all lifecycle stages, channels, and touchpoints in the customer journey. Prior to his tenure at Delta Dental, Jason served as the Marketing Director for Co-op Financial Services. In this role, he was responsible for developing and implementing marketing strategies for both traditional and digital advertising campaigns, new product introductions and sales enablement efforts. His unique blend of consumer insight and analytical acumen sets him apart in the dynamic field of marketing, where he continues to drive impactful results through a scientific approach to the art of strategic marketing.

Jason holds a Bachelor’s degree in Advertising from the University of Nebraska and a Master's degree in Data Analytics from the University of Iowa.

How can Advisors Plus cost-effectively help your financial institution reach aggressive growth goals?

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