Co-founder, president and CEO
Business Financial Services
Financial Services
FINALIST
Marc Glazer
Co-founder, president and CEO
Business Financial Services
You’ve heard of the phrase, “crème de la crème.” Well, Marc Glazer has been called “an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur.”
The president and CEO of Business Financial Services, Glazer uses his optimism, determination and business savvy to help other entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Accordingly, BFS thrives because of Glazer’s vision, leadership and ability to meet the underserved financing needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
As the son of a business owner, Glazer grew up helping in the family’s chain link fence company. He soon realized that in order to manage a business to succeed and achieve control over results, you had to master the numbers, and he chose to pursue an accounting degree.
After passing his CPA exam, Glazer tasted several entrepreneurial offerings before observing that in servicing small business clients, the unavailability of capital was a consistent impediment to their success.
As a result, in 2002 Glazer founded BFS to provide small-business financing secured by payment card receivables, an asset available to all but the smallest businesses. He invested his own funds and attracted investors who were confident that he understood the market, would devise the right strategy, and had the skills to implement it.
With unparalleled growth since its founding, BFS has been able to take advantage of the challenges in the last several years. Its customers are typically young businesses hungry for growth but with somewhat unpredictable sales and limited cash flow.
While his pre-recession business plan called for rapidly scaling the business, Glazer reacted with the market and implemented a low-growth strategy rather than risk degrading BFS’s receivables. By the end of the recession, half of BFS’s competitors were closed, yet the company emerged stable and ready to fund small businesses poised for post-recession growth that were unable to obtain traditional bank credit.
BFS is now the second-largest U.S. originator of payment card factoring, providing expedited funding for restaurants, retailers and other small businesses.
How to reach: Business Financial Services Inc., www.businessfinancialservices.com
