1. 76 • monitor • 2016 MONITOR 100
E
ric Miller became managing director and group
head of CIT Capital Equipment Finance in March
of 2015. Like many in the industry, equipment
finance was not his first career choice. Initially, he
wanted to be a veterinarian. Later, his focus shifted to
law enforcement.
After graduating from college, Miller worked in
collections for a bank while he focused on taking
entrance exams for local and federal law enforcement
agencies. Though the collections industry was not his
intended career path, this position laid the foundation
of Miller’s work ethic. “That job taught me how to work
hard,” Miller says. “If you work harder than everyone
around you, you end up with the best results. It ended
up being a big positive in my life.”
Miller quickly climbed to a collections leadership
position, which opened doors to credit and under-
writing. Through hard work, he won a leadership role in
credit, contract administration and operations.
In 2001, a recruiter tried to convince Miller to
consider a sales role with Wells Fargo Equipment
Finance. Initially, Miller had zero interest, given the
negative impression of sales people that he developed
during his time in collections, and he declined the role
four or five times. Thanks to the recruiter’s persistence,
Miller took the risk and began learning what was neces-
sary to succeed in a sales professional role with Wells
Fargo. “That was probably the single best career move
that I’ve made,” he says.
After a few years, GE Capital offered Miller a sales
role. About a year and a half later, he was offered a sales
manager position in the Northeast, which was a diffi-
cult move to make after his success as an individual
contributor. “I led different teams over the course of
my 10 years in sales leadership at GE Capital,” Miller
says. “It seems like every time I turned a team around
or took a team to a new level, my manager would change
my role. The guy that put me through all this pain, Tim
Hyland, ended up being a true mentor to me.”
Hyland taught Miller a great deal and remains a
trusted confidant to this day. “Learning the intricacies of
the business is something that you learn over time and
by working your butt off, but learning the behavioral
traits that are necessary to be a best-in-class leader is
something different,” Miller says. “Tim taught me how
to recognize my development needs. He taught me how
to become more self-aware. Most importantly, he taught
me how to soften the edges.”
This education was a true benefit to Miller when he
took his current role with CIT, which he says is a culmi-
nation of working in specific disciplines and pulling
them all together. “I’ve worked really hard to get to this
point,” Miller says. “More importantly, I want the people
who invested time and effort in me to be proud of the
contributions that they’ve made. I have a lot of people
to make proud.”
Operating With Integrity:
CIT Leverages Industry Expertise to Achieve
Customer Trust
BY RITA E. GARWOOD
Eric Miller has been building CIT Capital Equipment Finance’s direct originations platform, assembling a
team of customer-focused industry experts that provide custom-tailored solutions. Leveraging its risk
culture and industry-domain knowledge, CIT is serving markets that others may find challenging while
maintaining its status as a best-in-class organization and a trusted advisor to its customers.
ERIC MILLER
Managing Director &
Group Head, CIT Capital
Equipment Finance
“I think a lot of organizations are too internally focused. They create
processes which cause pain to their customer. I want this organization
to be one that thinks about the customer and works around the
process to make the customer experience a positive one.”
RANK: ASSETS: VOLUME:
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EXECUTIVE PROFILE: NEW LEADERSHIP

2. 2016 MONITOR 100 • monitor • 77
markets that others may find challenging. “We under-
stand structure, and we carry significant industry
domain knowledge. I think our bank competition,
to a large degree, is very focused on a credit rating
— a specific credit box. We do a tremendous job in
underwriting deeper, gaining an understanding of how
assets are going to be utilized and their importance to
the business.”
Industry Outlook
When Miller looks at the equipment finance industry as
a whole, he has two primary concerns: pressures caused
by commodity prices and the tendency to loosen stan-
dards in the face of competition. “Large banks continue
to price to win irrespective of relative value and risk,”
he says. “What I would consider to be risky credit deci-
sions that were made prior to the crisis are being made
today — maybe even worse.”
Despite these concerns, Miller says the industry is in
a period of slow growth. “I think the equipment finance
industry will continue to chug along slowly like it has
since the Great Recession. There’s been this pent-up
demand that just hasn’t reached fruition yet. It will at
some point in time, but I think everybody, since 2009,
has been so guarded that people have been concerned
with replacing their equipment to a large degree, partic-
ularly in the manufacturing space.”
Despite this tortoise pace, Miller does see opportu-
nity ahead. “What’s interesting is there’s been a transi-
tion in the large ticket market. GE Capital’s large ticket
equipment financing business no longer exists,” he says.
“In addition, a couple of other banks have exited.”
Miller notes that a few new entrants have emerged
to take advantage of the void left by GE Capital. “The
opportunity for us is simply by growing market share
through our direct originations channel. We’re very
well positioned to capture market that’s been left on
the table.”
Overall, Miller is excited about the path that lies
ahead. “CIT is a terrific organization. It’s been incred-
ibly supportive from an investment perspective. The
organization recognizes that making a transition from
an indirect model to a more direct approach has signifi-
cant benefit. For as long as I’ve been in the equipment
finance space, CIT has been synonymous with large-
ticket equipment finance. Now that I’m a member of the
team, I understand why.” m
RITA E. GARWOOD is managing editor of Monitor.
A Customer-Centric Approach
Miller plans to continue his record of accomplishment
by putting the customer first at CIT. “Creating and
expanding a culture of uncovering opportunities in a
market that allows us, as a business, to provide custom-
tailored solutions for individual needs is what drives
me,” Miller says. “It’s real easy to go out and provide
a low price, but it’s so much more rewarding to help
customers think differently about the best ways to capi-
talize their business.
“I think a lot of organizations are too internally
focused,” he continues. “They create processes which
cause pain to their customer. I want this organization
to be one that thinks about the customer and works
around the process to make the customer experience
a positive one.”
As CIT builds out a national direct-originations
platform targeting the middle market, this customer-
centric approach will be essential. “We’ve put together
an all-star team,” Miller says, adding that the team
members have specific industry knowledge that fits
their geographic coverage areas. “The sales director who
covers the northern half of California and the Pacific
Northwest has a strong background working with tech-
nology companies. In Detroit, our sales director not
only has experience working with transportation and
construction companies but in general manufacturers,
putting to use a specific expertise in financing automo-
tive manufacturing companies.”
All told, CIT has already established eight geographic
sales divisions across the U.S.: Southwest, Northwest,
Midwest, Northeast, Pacific, Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes
and Southeast. Miller says a Southern Plains division
is in the works. “We’re definitely growing,” Miller says.
“We’re obviously taking advantage of the opportunity
in the market right now.”
Miller has two short-term goals: completing the
direct channel platform build out and aligning the
equipment finance unit with CIT’s commercial banking
team. “We want to be a relationship-driven organiza-
tion. We want to earn trusted advisor status with our
customers,” Miller says.
“We’re working on being an extension of the industry
vertical teams within our commercial finance franchise.
We want to partner with our small-ticket leasing plat-
form, and we want to bring all of the products of CIT to
our customers. We want to add value to our customers
in whatever way we can.”
Miller’s long-term goals are customer-focused as
well. “We want to be viewed as an organization that our
customers rely on — one where they come back when-
ever there is a need. We want our customers to feel that
we understand their businesses and we will be there
through the natural business cycle. To the industry, we
want to be respected and viewed as a best-in-class orga-
nization that operates with the highest level of integrity.”
What sets CIT apart from the crowd, according to
Miller, is its risk culture. This culture gives CIT the
ability to perform deeper underwriting and devote the
time necessary to understand a company’s business in
“We want to be viewed as an organization that our customers rely
on — one where they come back whenever there is a need. We want
our customers to feel that we understand their businesses and we
will be there through the natural business cycle. To the industry, we
want to be respected and viewed as a best-in-class organization that
operates with the highest level of integrity.”