Our Team

Below you will find RLR’s team of professionals. Click on the links for the individual’s complete bio.

Executive Team

Ruth L. Razook, Founder & CEO
In 1988, she founded RLR to serve community banks primarily in the southern California region. RLR is now a nationwide consulting firm focused on providing high quality consulting assistance to financial institutions in the areas of corporate strategy, organizational analysis, operations and project management, information technology and payments. Ruth has conducted engagements for RLR’s clients for more than 25 years including over 50 start-up banks. She has managed SOX engagements, the relocation of a data center from northern California to southern California and a multitude of other projects. Ruth works closely with Bank management teams and Board of Directors. Ruth is also a frequent speaker at state and national banking and related technology conferences, annually facilitates regulatory panels, regularly conducts webinars on a variety of banking topics and is an advisor to certain banking industry associations. (Detail)

Mitch Razook, President & COO
Mitch Razook has over 35 years of consulting, banking, and information technology experience. His areas of expertise include retail banking, operations, payment systems and information technology. Mitch has worked with several financial services clients in the areas of strategic and technology transformation, corporate strategy, cost containment, operational effectiveness and project management.  (Detail)

Administrative Team

Jim Scott, Office Administrator
Jim Scott brings over 25 years of business administration and management to RLR.  Having begun his career in restaurant management Jim soon moved to legal services where he worked as the manager for a downtown Los Angeles law firm.  There his responsibilities included the oversight of all support staff, client relations, payroll, Superior Court liaison and I.T. development. (Detail)

Jami Sanders, Finance & Accounting Administrator 
Jami Sanders has over 25 years of accounting and administration experience. She oversees all aspects of RLR’s accounting activities including Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Payroll and Financial Reporting and prides herself on her accuracy and attention to detail. Her strengths include strong customer service, vendor and employee relations, providing accurate and timely financials, and coordinating with tax return preparers. (Detail)

Denise Bahs, Social Media Strategist and Marketing Specialist 
Denise Bahs is a Social Media Strategist and Marketing Specialist. Her background is in marketing, with more than 20 years in the payments industry. After working for a trade association for 8 years, she left to work with technology start-ups utilizing social media to move the needle. Witnessing firsthand how to leverage social media and grow social authority, Denise has helped numerous companies gain visibility and grow their businesses utilizing the social channels. (Detail)

Consulting Team

Benjamin E. Loveless, Senior Associate Consultant
Ben Loveless is a lead consultant with over 35 years of experience in financial institution management, Project Management, item processing and consulting. He has participated in financial institution consulting engagements throughout the western US in technology, operations and internet banking.  Ben’s experience in the financial industry includes executive management, operations, IT and internet banking management for a $1.2 billion southern California bank, manager/owner of an item processing service bureau, senior bank management positions with full bottom line responsibility and management of electronic banking functions. (Detail)

Chris Manning, Director of Information Systems Consulting
Chris Manning has over 30 years of experience in the financial industry. He is also a member of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA certification). His experience includes 15 years in IT Management for a $3.5 billion bank and over 15 years as a consultant. Chris has managed a wide variety of IT related projects for financial institutions and specializes in IT compliance. (Detail)

Diana Strade, Senior Associate Consultant
Diana Strade has over 30 years in the banking industry including bank operations and project management. Her experience includes management of support services for a $2 billion California community bank, and various management positions in a large national bank.  She has expertise in retail branch banking, support services including lending and operations, training, and compliance programs with strengths in policy and procedure development, internal controls, and operational efficiency. (Detail)

Donna Teague, Senior Associate Consultant
Donna Teague, a Senior Associate Consultant at RLR Management Consulting, Inc., has over 20 years of experience in financial institution management and consulting including leadership and best practices development, driving organizational change and process improvement in growing organizations. (Detail)

Jeff Brower, Senior Associate Consultant
Jeff Brower, a Senior Associate Consultant at RLR Management Consulting, Inc., has been involved with bank data processing services for the majority of his working career. Having worked for Fiserv for seven years as a Senior Sales Executive his experience includes managing a bank’s in-house data processing department, managing a Customer Support department in a large (65 clients) outsourcing company, and currently selling bank processing services to banks. He also has experience with Premier and Precision systems. (Detail)

John Mason, Senior Associate Consultant
John Mason, a Senior Associate Consultant for RLR Management Consulting, Inc., has over 20 years combined experience in financial services, internal audit, SSAE 16s/18s, regulatory compliance, information security, investigations, and process reengineering. John has performed over 200 SSAE 18 SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits throughout his career. He has held positions such as Chief Internal Auditor and VP of Audit & Compliance in a variety of companies. While at two multi-billion-dollar institutions, he was the Chief Information Security Officer and helped establish information risk management programs as well as designing risk-based programs several years before Sarbanes-Oxley. (Detail)

Lynsey Bloch, Senior Consultant
Lynsey Bloch has over 15 years’ experience in the retail banking industry.  Her experience encompasses all aspects of bank operations including both front and back office functions, internal management positions, IT project management, vendor contract negotiation and interface, lending, operations, and compliance.  Lynsey was responsible for IT management for a California community bank that grew from three branches to seven across multiple States in less than 5 years.  Her 15 years of FISERV Premier experience includes implementations, conversions, policy and procedure development, internal controls, user support, education and training facilitator, and continuous process improvement of operational efficiencies. (Detail)

Nancy Cook, Senior Associate Consultant
Nancy Cook has over 30 years of experience in management for financial institutions. She has managed projects for mergers/acquisitions, internet banking, product development, cash management systems conversions and documentation reviews. Nancy’s experience in the financial industry includes merger/integration project management, operational management and treasury services management for two of the top five banks in the country as well as community and de novo institutions in California. Her expertise is in project management, treasury/cash management, product development, and operations efficiency, where she has managed numerous projects from $5 million to $20 billion, with project teams of up to 135 people. (Detail)

Neva McCormick, Senior Associate Consultant
Neva McCormick has over 24 years’ experience in the financial industry in key roles including SVP, CFO, Controller, IT Manager and Operations Manager. She has comprehensive experience in financial and managerial accounting, budgeting, financial reporting and analysis, contract negotiation and oversight, IT management, project management and strategic planning. (Detail)

Paul Richardson, Senior Consultant
Paul Richardson, a Senior Consultant at RLR Management Consulting, Inc., has over 20 years’ experience in bank operations and application support for both in house and outsourced banks. His experience encompasses many aspects of bank operations including deposit operations, payment and card processing, data processing and application support. His 20 years of FISERV Premier experience includes implementations, conversions, procedure development, internal controls, user support and continuous process improvement of operational efficiencies. Paul has been an Accredited ACH Professional (AAP) since 2000. (Detail)

Robert Sommerfeld, Senior Associate Consultant
Robert S. Sommerfeld, a Senior Associate Consultant of RLR, has over 20 years of experience in management, banking and loan servicing. His knowledge includes commercial and retail loan support, mergers and acquisitions, as well as project management support and consultation. He has extensive knowledge and experience with implementation of processes, and compliance in support of Mortgage Reform, Truth in Lending, UDAAP, CFPB, Customer Complaint Processing, and Reg Z. (Detail)

Susan Roling, Senior Associate Consultant
Susan Roling has over 20 years of experience in both the retail and regulatory banking sectors. Her knowledge includes both operations and credit roles and includes system implementations and conversions, policy and procedure development, internal control creation, strategic marketing initiatives, system design, training and user support, project management and workflow process improvement. (Detail)

Valerie McCune, Senior Associate Consultant
Val McCune has over 30 years of experience in banking operations and project management. She specializes in all aspects of bank operations and has played a key role in several RFP, conversion and merger/acquisition projects.(Detail)