Leadership

Kalyan Makam has been the CEO at Amur since September 2022 and has been with Amur for the last ten years. Prior to this current role, Kalyan headed finance, strategy, and capital markets for Amur. Before joining Amur, Kalyan was a Portfolio Manager at UBS and managed over $2B of asset backed securities with a primary focus in transportation, whole business, small business loans, and CLOs. As a banker, Kalyan has created many first-of-the-kind financings and structured over $20B of securitizations and $5B of acquisition financing to private equity firms. He has developed risk-based pricing frameworks for many specialty finance companies. 

Elliott Klass serves as General Counsel and Head of Strategy of Amur and is a member of its Board of Directors. Elliott, in conjunction with the executive team, is responsible for Amur’s overall corporate strategy, in addition to management of the legal function, whole loan syndication platform and capital markets execution. Elliott previously was a member of the finance practices of Vedder Price and Latham & Watkins.

Andrea is the Chief Risk Officer of Amur, responsible for the credit, collections, and asset management departments and is a member of its Board of Directors. Prior to joining Amur in 2015, he was a Director at CIT’s Maritime Finance, a group he helped develop to provide senior secured financings in the maritime sector. Previously, Andrea was a Vice President of CIT Transportation Lending, with coverage responsibilities in the aerospace, defense, rail, and domestic shipping sectors. He has held additional roles as a Research Associate at UBS covering U.S. airlines, as well as in transportation investment banking and structured finance at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley. 

James Truran is the Chief Operating Officer of Amur and is responsible for operations, human capital, data analytics, and process improvement. Previously he spent a decade serving in operations and strategy roles within the U.K. and U.S. governments. James most recently served at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also led a team that data modeled the enterprise performance of acquisition projects as part of the U.K.’s Defense Acquisition Reform Initiative. He has worked globally in military headquarters, including the U.K.’s Permanent Joint Headquarters, U.S. Central Command, and deployed locations. 

Rich Chenitz is the Chief Commercial Officer and is responsible for leading the Company’s origination funnel and driving vendor relationships. He previously served as the President of Vendor Finance at Huntington Vendor Finance where he led a $4B asset business and $2B of annual originations in the industrial, specialty vehicle, and healthcare markets. He also was the President and Chief Operating Officer for TCF Capital Solutions. Rich has over 35 years of experience and holds a B.A. from Boston University and MBA in Finance & Marketing from Northwestern University.

Todd Wainwright has been with Amur since 2015. Originally part of the Credit leadership team, he now focuses on developing and nurturing Amur’s origination relationships with vendors, intermediaries, and other third-parties. Todd provides leadership, formal, and informal training as well as mentoring to employees and managers within and outside his department. He is also responsible for proposing and executing strategic initiatives with respect to business development. Prior to joining, Todd gained more than 13 years of credit and managerial experience in fleet management / leasing.