Mark Velarde
Co-Founder, Managing Director

Mark Velarde is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Catalyst in Los Angeles. Mr. Velarde brings more than 20 years of experience in assisting insolvent and troubled companies, with a focus on operational, financial and real estate-related restructuring.

Since 1988, Mr. Velarde has gained a significant base of corporate turnaround, crisis management, performance improvement and private M&A experience in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, telecom, retail, healthcare, real estate and hospitality. Mr. Velarde’s major interim management and advisory roles in turnaround situations have included CEO, COO, CFO, and CRO titles.

Prior to Catalyst, Mr. Velarde co-founded HVK, Inc. with Hugh Hilton to provide real estate advisory services to institutional, public and private entities. HVK also provided real estate solutions for a number of corporate workout clients of Alvarez & Marsal (A&M). Upon A&M’s acquisition of HVK, Messers Hilton and Velarde established A&M’s West Coast division in 1992, and led that practice until 2003.

Mr. Velarde began his career with Karsten Institutional Real Estate Advisors (a division of First Interstate Bancorp), where he rose to the position of Senior Vice President of Acquisitions.

Mr. Velarde received his BA and MBA degrees from UCLA. Mr. Velarde is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Turnaround Management Association and the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors. Mark is a candidate for both the Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor (“CIRA”) designation from the AIRA, and the ACTP’s Certified Turnaround Professional (“CTP”) designation.