Featured Speaker for December 10, 2009

Wanda Alexander purchased a majority stake in Horizon Consulting Incorporated in September of 1995, immediately assuming the positions of President and CEO of the company. Her leadership has seen Horizon grow into a 130-plus-person organization and a position (#312) on the Inc500 list of the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America.  Horizon provides high volume work flow management, data entry, loan quality control, appraisal management, and due diligence services to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other governmental agencies, multifamily housing owners, and commercial banks.  

 

Ms. Alexander is a native of Washington, DC and is a product of the DC and Prince George’s County public schools.  She is a 1981 graduate of the University of Maryland College Park.  She has over 28 years’ experience in asset management, portfolio supervision and debt restructuring strategies for financially distressed multifamily real estate.  Throughout her career, she has been responsible for oversight management of HUD-insured and/or subsidized multifamily housing properties and is intimately familiar with the factors needed to successfully develop, manage and maintain such housing.  

 

Ms. Alexander’s vision for Horizon has been to create a company that helps clients mitigate the risk of conducting mission-critical operations while reducing expenses.  Since the firm’s inception, she and the Horizon staff have been committed to honesty, integrity, professionalism and hard work in all of the company’s business relationships.  In addition, community outreach is a key component of Horizon’s commitment to giving back to the communities in all the cities where the company operates – Santa Ana, California; Denver, Colorado; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Lansdowne, VA and Atlanta, Georgia. 

 

Ms. Alexander has been personally active for close to 30 years with organizations that have created scholarships for minority women, taught investment training to elementary youth, provided direction and leadership to teens and mentored young ladies through and after college.  She currently serves as a mentor to several women who have started their own businesses and attained much success on their own.  She was recognized by the Loudoun County Commission on Women and the Board of Supervisors as one of the Outstanding Women of Loudoun County for 2005.  In 2007, she was recognized by the Small Business Administration as its Women Business Champion of the Year.  In April 2009, Ms. Alexander was recognized by the Washington Business Journal as an Outstanding Minority Business Leader and most recently was selected by Smart CEO Magazine for a BRAVA Award!  In 2009, Ms. Alexander was elected to the Board of Governors for the University of Maryland Alumni Association.  She serves on the Loudoun County Advisory Board for BB&T Bank and volunteers to lecture on Ethics in Business for the Colvin School of Real Estate at the University of Maryland, College Park.  She also established an endowment at the University of Maryland in honor of her parents, Samuel and Grace Alexander.

 

Under Ms. Alexander’s leadership, Horizon’s commitment to understanding customer needs and delivering on its promises for its customers has allowed the company to achieve consistent, sustainable growth.  “I strongly believe that to whom much is given, much is required, and the principles of Horizon are built on this foundation.  At Horizon, the best is yet to come because we must, and we do, act as if it is impossible to fail!”