The Lion of Factoring: Bert Goldberg Never Stopped Fighting

Bert Goldberg (left) with his wife, Cheryl Goldberg (right), at the 2019 IFA Annual Conference.

There would be no International Factoring Association without Bert Goldberg and to many, the factoring industry itself wouldn’t be as vibrant as it is without his advocacy. Although Goldberg lost his life in 2021, his legacy will never truly die.

BY PHIL NEUFFER

Bert Goldberg was many things. He was a generous soul, a force for good, an exceptional husband and parent, a face of an industry and, to many, the father of the factoring industry. As the founder and executive director of the International Factoring Association, Goldberg’s most publicized and celebrated achievements came from his work building and connecting the factoring community, which grew exponentially stronger and more connected thanks to Goldberg’s vision and leadership.

“The work and effort that Bert put into supporting and strengthening our industry is invaluable,” Glen Shu, president of Bay View Funding and the specialty finance group at Heritage Bank of Commerce and an IFA advisory board member, says. “Bert created a culture that brought competitors together to work in a collaborative environment for the betterment of the industry.”

“He legitimized the factoring industry, brought the people together and helped establish best practices,” Steven N. Kurtz, Esq., of Levinson Arshonsky & Kurtz, says. “He took what was, at that time, operating out in the Wild West and brought it all together, established standards and set it up as a legitimate organization.”

Today, the IFA is the largest commercial finance association in the world, with members in countries across the globe. The association’s premier event, its annual conference, has grown from small roots as a user group Goldberg hosted while president of factoring software firm Distinctive Solutions into a massive showcase for the industry that hosts more than 800 attendees each year. In addition, the IFA’s lobbying arm, the American Factoring Association, a 501(C)6 nonprofit, advocates for the industry on Capitol Hill, providing education to lawmakers about the importance of factoring while ensuring protection for every participant in the industry. All of this and more has been accomplished because of Goldberg.

“I don’t know that we’d be that tightknit community if we didn’t have somebody like him that brought us all together under an umbrella of being purposeful, ethically driven, holding ourselves to a higher standard of doing things the right way,” Greg Salomon, president of Oxygen Funding and an advisory board member of the IFA, says.

Looking for Adventure

Although Goldberg grew to become one of the factoring industry’s greatest champions, he led a life of adventure before he really found his calling, taking time from his first job after college for a biking tour across Europe and embarking on a backpacking tour through much of Southeast Asia in 1984 before returning to Distinctive Solutions. Being active and exploratory was a hallmark of Goldberg’s life. In addition to his love of travel, he was a longtime outdoor sports enthusiast with a passion for kitesurfing, windsurfing, bicycling and swimming.

Goldberg’s active approach to life was certainly a product of his upbringing. Born on Oct. 11, 1956, in Los Angeles, Goldberg grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California with two younger brothers. During childhood, he displayed a mischievous sense of humor and a knack for always being on the move. Goldberg channeled some of that active spirit into swimming in high school, winning a state championship at Chatsworth High School in Los Angeles.

After graduating from California State-Northbridge with a degree in accounting information systems in 1978, Goldberg worked for a medical billing company as a software developer and for Vandenberg Air Force Base, where he contributed to the space shuttle program as a computer programmer, before finding his way to Distinctive Solutions. Goldberg’s professional life really blossomed at the company, as he would become the company’s president while earning a master’s degree from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA.

It was at Distinctive Solutions that Goldberg was first introduced to the factoring industry. With his background, Goldberg knew all about the software sales side of the business, but he had to educate himself on other elements of the sector. In many ways, he learned the industry alongside many of its current leaders, according to Dean Landis, president of Entrepreneur Growth Capital and an advisory board member of the IFA.

Creating a Family

In 1995, Goldberg decided to launch a software user group meeting where he could learn about what concerned his clients and educate them on the industry. In the first meeting, Goldberg, who preferred to shine the spotlight on others, invited Bob Zadek and Bob Weisberg, two industry insiders, to speak, creating the basis for what would become the IFA and, ultimately, its annual conference.

“The outside speakers became so popular that he had non-users wanting to attend his user group meeting,” Cheryl Goldberg, Bert Goldberg’s wife of 25 years, says.

Bert Goldberg and Cheryl Goldberg began dating right around the same time Bert Goldberg was advancing his career at Distinctive Solutions and building its user group meetings. As Cheryl Goldberg explains, she and Bert Goldberg originally met when they were in their early 20s, but they didn’t begin seriously dating until their mid-30s when Bert Goldberg was living in Shell Beach, CA, near Cheryl Goldberg’s mother’s home.

During their first date at Giuseppe’s Restaurant in Pismo Beach, CA, Cheryl Goldberg says she realized she was going to marry her dinner partner. Bert Goldberg would tell her he felt the same thing years later. They were both right, as Bert and Cheryl Goldberg were married on Nov. 10, 1996. They would become parents soon after following the birth of their daughter, Maleah, in 1998.

At the same time that Bert and Cheryl Goldberg were building a life and a family together, Bert Goldberg was constructing more of the foundation of what would become the IFA. Ever since its first meeting in 1995, Distinctive Solutions’ user group continued to attract newcomers and veterans of the factoring industry alike, even though Goldberg himself wasn’t technically in the industry per se.

“I thought, ‘Where did this guy come from?’ That he knows all this stuff about factoring, but he’s not one,” Debra Zukonik, co-founder and chief credit officer at Dare Capital and an advisory board member of the IFA, says. “He greatly broadened my knowledge base, even from the very beginning.”

Launching the IFA

As the years went by and its popularity grew, the user group meetings became much more than a pet project and Goldberg eventually decided to form an entire association dedicated to the factoring industry. Helped in no small way by the sale of Distinctive Solutions to 3i Infotech, Goldberg was free to embark on his own journey, which he did by officially launching the IFA. During those early years, Goldberg relied on the many industry friends he made during his years with Distinctive Solutions to help lift the association into an established force. But he also had to overcome hurdles almost entirely on his own.

For example, during the leadup to the IFA’s 2006 and 2007 conferences, which were to be held in Cancun and New Orleans, respectively, weather reports about two massive hurricanes headed for each location created a wave of doubt about the ability to actually hold the events. For an association as new as the IFA at the time, losing out on those conferences would hurt quite a bit. Goldberg tackled the challenge head-on, traveling to the two locations to find hotels that would accommodate the events, ensuring they were successful. With the drive and dedication Goldberg displayed during his life, if a venue couldn’t have been procured, he may have even found a way to stop the hurricanes himself.

While that is obvious hyperbole, the standing Goldberg gained among association members over the years as the IFA grew was nothing short of super heroic. It’s one thing to create the space for members of an entire industry to connect, but it’s another to serve as the bridge that brings them together, even those who are active competitors. In addition, through his work guiding the IFA, Goldberg won the factoring industry the type of esteem it had long struggled to attain from the broader specialty finance sector.

“He put so much energy into creating an organization for alternative lenders like ourselves to be able to come together, share ideas, network, learn and be recognized throughout the entire commercial finance world,” Shu says.

Advocate, Educate, Escalate

The IFA of today is not the same as the IFA of 1999, obviously, but Goldberg did much more than add members over the years. The IFA currently has chapters in Canada, the Northeast, the Midwest, Southern California, the Southeast and Texas, with its reach expanding beyond those realms to other countries, making it a truly international organization.

Oscar Rombolà, managing director of eCapital and an advisory board member of the IFA, worked with Goldberg to launch the Canadian chapter of the IFA after attending his first IFA conference in 2006.

“We wanted to create a true forum for members and colleagues in the industry where we can talk about common issues,” Rombolà says. “Bert’s support and advice was greatly appreciated; we were threading uncharted waters.”

In addition to new chapters, Goldberg also expanded the reach of the IFA to ensure it not only provided resources but protection for the factoring industry. Following the Great Recession, Goldberg and other members of the IFA’s leadership formed the American Factoring Association, giving members of the factoring community a voice in national politics.

“Bert came up with the idea of a group for advocacy and the purpose would be to represent the members of the International Factoring Association,” Allen Frederic, managing director of corporate finance for Infinity Financial Group and a former president of the AFA, says. “It had two purposes. One was advocacy, but the second was education, to explain to lawmakers on the Hill what factoring was and why it was a benefit.”

According to Frederic, taking an idea from gestation to execution was one of Goldberg’s greatest strengths and a major reason why the IFA has been such a dynamic and evolving organization for so long.

Never Quit

Goldberg’s life took a defining and tragic turn in 2012. He had always maintained the active lifestyle of his youth, but in 2012, he suffered a severe injury while kitesurfing that left him paralyzed from the waist down. For someone like Goldberg, who didn’t know the meaning of slowing down, the injury was a devastating blow but one he faced with unflinching courage and determination.

“Bert had more perseverance than anyone I have ever known or will know. He was also the smartest person I have ever known,” Cheryl Goldberg says. “After he had to stay in bed for a year after his accident due to a wound infection, if he couldn’t do something, he would think on it and think on it until he figured out how he could do it himself.”

Although Bert Goldberg would need a wheelchair to move around for the rest of his life after the accident, he didn’t stop doing what he loved. Up until his untimely death in 2021, Goldberg was still a regular swimmer and outdoorsman.

“Even though he was in pain every single day, he worked out to keep his strength up and would never let on that he had to deal with debilitating nerve pain every single day,” Cheryl Goldberg says. “He has shown everyone that it is not what you have been dealt in life, but how you move forward. He traveled independently, ran a successful business, raised a smart daughter and was the best provider and husband I could ever ask for.”

Bert Goldberg’s reaction in the face of adversity was right in line with his personality. Most who knew Goldberg well describe him as calm, gentle, kind, upbeat, understanding, accommodating, driven, passionate, witty and rational, and that’s just the short list. Such characteristics made him an ideal leader for the IFA and a devoted friend, husband and father.

Tragically, Goldberg was dealt another severe blow in 2021, as he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. The original diagnosis did not provide much hope, but Goldberg went to battle with the same dedication he approached every challenge and opportunity in his life. In a video shown at the IFA’s Annual Conference in 2021, Goldberg shared the news with members of the association and many rallied around the cause by providing support financially and/ or emotionally. The outpouring was only natural, as an industry that Goldberg made into a family looked to protect one of its own.

“When he informed us advisory board members first about his health situation, we were all floored,” Shu says. “I’m going to miss his strength and leadership but also the gentle, kind, big-hearted person who never stopped working for all of us in the specialty finance community.”

Goldberg fought long and hard to recover, but, just as when he suffered his kitesurfing accident nearly a decade before, he never let the rigors of the process change who he was or how he viewed the world.

Kurtz had the chance to spend some time with Goldberg before he passed in November of last year. The two friends, who met for the first time more than 20 years earlier, took a long stroll on a bike path near Goldberg’s home on the Central Coast of California. As Kurtz describes, Goldberg still pushed himself up every incline and then went flying back down them with a smile on his face.

“He knew what his chances were and where he was with his treatment and how long,” Kurtz says. “And he was just able to face it with dignity, and he was emotional, but he said he felt he lived a good life, and he had no regrets.”