Small Business Loans

“Starting a business is difficult and takes a lot of hard work. Being underfinanced when starting your business can negatively affect your business success. This workshop can help you and your team get started and develop a moneymaking enterprise, by providing you with a realistic, clear and positive idea of your potential funding options available.”

Petula Pinto has over 14 years of experience in personal and business lending, in for-profit establishments (Freedom 55 Financial, Campbell Ford and the Royal Bank of Canada) and not-for–profit organization (Ottawa Community Loan Fund – OCLF).

She joined OCLF in 2014 as a consultant, and was hired in 2015 as the Manager of Business Development and Lending Operations. In her role she helps Ottawa residents to achieve their professional and entrepreneurial goals, increasing their financial independence. In addition, she delivers credit literacy workshops, and strives passionately to help her clients develop the required financial reputation.

She has achieved awards for exemplary client service and sales target achievements throughout her career, and she is a Beta Gamma Sigma (The International Honor Society Recognizing Business Excellence) inductee. She volunteers with the Indo-Canadian Community Centre, NGL sub-committee as part of their executive team.

Petula believes that what makes you successful is to find something that you love to do and then offer it to others. She considers herself fortunate to have found a position with OCLF that allows her to combine her lending expertize with her passion to help people, and serve the Ottawa community.

Michael Oster became President of the Ottawa Community Loan Fund (OCLF) in December 2011, and since then has led OCLF to significant growth and renewed Community impact.

Michael is a member of the OLIP Council (Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership); co-chair of OLIP’s Economic Integration Sector Table; and serves on the President's Advisory Panel for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Algonquin College, and on the City’s G33 Task Force.  Michael is a former Director of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, the Ottawa Community Loan Fund, and the High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL), a consortium of Canadian Universities.

Michael is a frequent speaker at conferences and is frequently asked to advise entrepreneurs.  An active Community volunteer, in 2013 Ottawa Public Health presented the Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Champion Award to Michael for his volunteer leadership of the Biodome Garden project at Brewer Park Community Garden.

Michael began his high-tech career with IBM then joined Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), for each company holding multiple roles with progressive responsibilities in both Ottawa and Toronto.  With Cisco Systems Canada, he was National Director, Public Sector Business Development at the time of his planned early retirement, and led Cisco Canada’s vision, strategy and execution for the Education and Government vertical markets and related Community priorities. Michael’s further credentials include eight years of international experience with technology start-ups and turn-arounds.