With a 25-year track record, Tricia Marks is one of the most experienced professionals in middle-market lending. She began at Heller Financial Inc., a firm purchased by GE Capital in 2001. She joined Madison Capital in 2003. Over the last several years, Marks has focused on healthcare deals—one of the largest areas, volume-wise, of leveraged buyouts-- though she also still works on generalist transactions.

Two examples of recent transactions: At the end of 2014, she helped lead a recapitalization, negotiating and syndicating a $213 million credit facility for Vention Medical, a company that designs, engineers and manufactures complex medical devices and components owned by KRG Capital in Denver. In the first quarter of 2015, she negotiated and syndicated WBT Acquisition, $87 million leveraged buyout for a client, for a company that owns and operates mammography facilities in the U.S.

A lot has changed since Marks started in 1990. “During the first half of my career, it was much less competitive, and the participants in the market were much different,” she says. Madison is one of the last remaining traditional finance companies, competing with business development companies, other asset managers and specialty finance companies. Also, there’s a lot more variety in the capital structures used to complete transactions today. Another change is the hold sizes of participants. In earlier years, the hold positions would be $10 million to $20 million, while today those positions are $20 million to $100 million depending on the institution.