As a Partner and Strategic Financing Services Leader at Cherry Bekaert, Laurel brings more than 20 years of experience to her role. She offers tailored guidance on complex financial transactions for the economic development of communities through her knowledge of federal and state New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC), Historic Tax Credits, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Renewable Energy Tax Credits, bond financing and other types of incentives. Laurel provides clients with technical guidance through transactions beginning at inception and assists in compliance through the entirety of the loans until unwind.

Before joining Cherry Bekaert, Laurel was the Chief Executive Officer of MBS Urban Initiatives, a Community Development Entity (CDE), and Deputy General Counsel of Development at McCormack Baron
Salazar. During her tenure, Laurel deployed over $297 million of the CDE’s NMTC allocation into 42 investments resulting in over $1.16 billion in investment in Low-Income Communities (LICs) across the country. In addition, she sourced over $50 million in third party NMTC allocation into 6 projects as a tax credit, finance and development consultant.

Laurel’s extensive knowledge in tax credits began with a legal career with an emphasis on federal, state and local tax issues and complex investments involving corporations, partnerships, and tax-exempt entities. As legal counsel, she represented community development entities, qualified active low-income community businesses, investors, banks and financial institutions, non-profits, and government organizations on a variety of complex legal matters from start-up/formation through tax credit and incentive financial closings. In this capacity, she acted as the lead deal attorney and/or lead tax counsel on over 100 tax credit transactions.