President & CEO

Marla Bilonick

Marla Bilonick serves as President and CEO of NALCAB. She is a seasoned leader in economic and community development with over 25 years of experience in small business development and community-based financial services, with a focus on driving and uplifting the contributions of the US Latino population to the overall U.S. economy.

At NALCAB, she has led the organization through a period of exponential growth. Under her tenure, NALCAB's membership has almost doubled, and the NALCAB network's coverage area now spans every state in the nation as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The organization has also achieved significant gains under her leadership in terms of overall revenue and net asset growth. In addition, NALCAB's staff has grown during this time to support the needs of our expanded network of economic development practitioners.

Prior to joining NALCAB, Marla served as Executive Director of the Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) in Washington, DC, where she helped propel the local economy through programs that advanced the economic and social mobility of low- to moderate-income Latinos. From 2016 to 2020, she also served as a member of NALCAB’s Board of Directors.

In 2021, Marla was appointed Chair of the US Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund Community Development Advisory Board for which she is currently serving a second term. She also serves in an advisory capacity to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-FDIC.

Earlier in her career, Marla worked in the private sector, leading economic development initiatives in Latin America. She also served as the Director of Seedco’s Upper Manhattan Business Solutions Center in Harlem, a public-private initiative supporting small businesses with access to capital and consulting services. Additionally, she helped lead Seedco’s long-term small business recovery strategy following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

She is a former Aspen Institute Emerging Leaders in Microbusiness (ELM2) Fellow and a graduate of the Citi/Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) Leadership Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She currently serves on the Community Advisory Councils for Capital One, PNC Bank, and TD Bank and has advised Wells Fargo’s regional Where We Live initiative. In 2015, she was named a Community Champion by Capital One Bank for the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Marla holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Master of Arts from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).