CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Top executives from Peak5, AmeriCredit, FirstCity and ConnectionInsights will be featured in an upcoming Webinar hosted by the American Financial Services Association called "Is Now the Time to Consider Outsourcing?"

AFSA shared a bit of history about the panelists:

Robert Micalizzi has more than 18 years of experience in all aspects of direct and indirect auto lending, including pricing, risk management, MIS development, servicing, collections and business modeling. 

Since June 2008, Micalizzi has been a principal in FirstCity Fund Advisors Inc., an advisory services firm focused on obtaining best execution for clients involved in asset based transactions. He is responsible for ensuring that FirstCity's risk management capabilities are aligned with its strategic business objectives, as well as new business development, infrastructure development, asset valuation, reporting, analytics and business modeling. 

Prior to joining FirstCity, Micalizzi was at Merrill Lynch as part of a principal investment trading desk engaged in the purchase of a variety of consumer receivables. In his five-plus years at Merrill Lynch he played a key role in numerous whole loan transactions and auto-loan flow programs involving more than $11.5 billion in receivables. 

Another panelist will be Kevin Barry, who has more than 20 years of experience in the credit and collections industry, managing portfolio servicing operations and risk management in both first party and third party environments. 

He has extensive expertise in providing senior-level management overseeing large call center operations. He has held senior management positions with Centrix Financial, Arcadia Financial (now CitiAuto) and Citicorp Retail Services. He is currently chief executive officer of Peak5.

Preston Miller is the former chief financial officer and chief operating officer of AmeriCredit and has more than 19 years of experience in all facets of the consumer auto lending market. 

Miller's expertise comes from managing a multibillion-dollar auto portfolio utilizing both internal resources as well as third-party service providers. He will be shedding light on his experiences and will assist in determining if and when to consider using a third-party servicer.

Marguerite Watanabe, another panelist, has more than 20 years of experience in the auto finance and automotive arena focusing mainly on business development and strategic planning activities.

She is president of Connections Insights, a management consulting firm designed to focus on strategic partnering between auto finance service providers and the finance sources including captives, banks, independent auto finance companies and credit unions. She has held management positions at BenchMark Consulting International, BarNone, Equifax and Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp.

The Webinar will be held on Feb. 17 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EST.

Attendees can register for the Webinar at http://www.afsaonline.org/sitepages/meeting.cfm?meetingid=119. There is a $20 registration fee for non-AFSA members.