Blake has a rich, diversified financial history spanning over 20 years.  Blake has served in numerous roles including investigation, lending and real estate management in the banking industry. While Blake’s experience includes a wide variety of industries, his primary areas of expertise are in maximizing asset recoveries and real estate.

Prior to joining The Finley Group, Blake was a Senior Vice President for First Horizon Bank National Association with principal activities in commercial lending, investigation, special assets and corporate real estate.

Blake’s extensive experience in the banking industry includes:

• Rehabilitating two large real estate developments that required completion of infrastructure, reformation of title, creation of a rental management company, and ultimately selling of assets. This undertaking involved multiple litigation matters, obtaining local and state approvals for completion, bidding of multi-million dollar contracts, and then oversight of the build out phase. Successful litigation and negotiations resulted in judgement and settlement which recouped millions of lost dollars to several financial institutions.
• Receiver for a Class A Office Building located in Knoxville, TN. Blake took over all day to day duties and operations, negotiating leases and providing new tenants and business for the building. Blake was successful in reestablishing the building, and ultimately resulted in selling the building note at auction to a new owner and conducted the wind down and closing of the turnover.
• Responsible for the oversight of maximizing recovery of one of the top five furniture and carpet wholesaler/retailers in the Southeast.
• Managed the unwind and recovery of multiple out of trust automotive dealerships involving six major flags.
• Served as lead investigator on several large, white-collar crime matters involving the financial services industry.
• Worked with Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of the Inspector General and Naval Criminal Investigation Division to prosecute one of the first undercover operations involving mortgage fraud against a financial institution, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the United States Navy.
• Worked a large internal affairs case involving manipulation and theft in excess of $1 million. Suspects were successfully prosecuted at the federal level and civil litigation was utilized to recover assets.

Blake has spoken at a Turnaround Management Association event on the topic of commercial real estate. He has also served as an adjunct instructor for Tennessee Law Enforcement Academy.