Maria is a twenty-five-plus-year veteran of the financial industry and the founder and CEO of Shrake Consulting. Maria attended the University of New Mexico, Anderson School of Business, where she received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting, followed by achieving a New Mexico license as a certified public accountant.

Maria’s first ten years in the financial industry began as a teller with multi-billion-dollar commercial banks. She flourished in the banking industry, obtaining the position of AVP of regional operations for a multi-branch network.

Her detour to a public accountancy role ultimately led her to the credit union industry. Although Maria loved the public accountancy role as an auditor, she decided to take that newfound audit knowledge and put it to work serving credit unions. A posted position as Director of Internal Audit called to her. The position was to establish an internal audit department for a credit union that had been outsourcing that process. The rest, as they say, is history.

The love of the industry, along with Maria’s passion and drive, culminated in C-Suite positions of EVP in operations and finance. The earlier years of banking and a focus on operations and compliance served her and her credit unions well as COO. The CPA achievement opened doors to CFO roles, and Shrake Consulting services led to CEO and interim positions.

Shrake Consulting services was established in 2014.