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Expert

Eileen Serafin

Senior advisor focused on large, complex financings, credit strategy, capital structuring, and governance in capital-intensive and infrastructure-relevant sectors.

Eileen Serafin leads SERJON's financing, financial and credit advisory work, supporting clients navigating multi-million and multi-billion-dollar financings, federal credit programs, and complex capital structures across various industries, including transportation, energy, critical minerals, and infrastructure.

Her work supports leadership teams operating in decision environments where financing structure, credit risk, and execution must be evaluated together.

Overview

Eileen Serafin is a senior financial and credit executive with more than 20 years of experience evaluating creditworthiness, structuring, executing, and managing complex infrastructure and asset-backed financings across both public and private lending sectors. She advises sponsors, government agencies, rail companies, developers, ports, shipyards, cargo operators, and infrastructure investors on optimizing capital structures and securing strategic funding solutions for large-scale projects.

As the former head of the Railroad Rehabilitation & Infrastructure Financing (RRIF) program, Ms. Serafin provides subject matter expertise on multi-billion-dollar infrastructure initiatives utilizing U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) credit programs and federal grant funding. She also served as Senior Financial Advisor to the Maritime Administration (MARAD) on the Title XI Federal Ship Financing Program, supporting vessel construction, shipyard modernization, and broader maritime infrastructure development.

Her expertise financing U.S. and international transactions spans the full financing lifecycle, from origination and underwriting through structuring, approval, closing, monitoring, and restructuring with deep experience navigating U.S. government credit programs, export credit agencies, multilateral institutions, and private capital markets. She specializes in designing integrated funding strategies that combine grants, direct loans, loan guarantees, sponsor equity, export credit support, and private capital to enhance project feasibility and optimize risk allocation.

She brings a dual perspective from both federal credit leadership and private-sector banking, allowing her to align transactions with credit requirements, policy objectives, and execution realities.

Representative Experience

  • Led and managed large federal credit programs, including the $35B RRIF program
  • Advised on multi-million and multi-billion-dollar financings across energy, transportation, and industrial sectors
  • Structured and executed project, structured, and corporate financings across domestic and international markets
  • Supported transactions involving EXIM, DOE, USDOT, and MARAD financing programs
  • Led credit analysis, underwriting, negotiation, and execution through financial close and funding, as well as risk re-assessments post-closing and restructuring/workouts as needed.
  • Developed and improved credit program's policies and procedures

Core Consulting Services

1. Funding Strategy

  • Identification and optimization of federal, state, and institutional funding opportunities
  • Blended finance structures (grants + loans + guarantees + sponsor equity)
  • Financial structuring (project, structured, corporate, P3) and risk identification and mitigation
  • Capital stack design and funding sequencing/optimization
  • Advisory for rail & cargo operators, ports, shipyards, energy, critical minerals, and industrial projects

2. Federal Credit Program Advisory

Extensive experience across:

  • USDOT - RRIF (Railroad Rehabilitation & Infrastructure Financing), MARAD Title XI and grants, and TIFIA
  • USDOE Loan Programs Office (now EDF)
  • Export-Import Bank of the United States
  • Other federal programs, including DFC (formerly OPIC), WIFIA, USDA RD and FFB/US Treasury

Services include:

  • Funding source identification (grants, loans, guarantees, ECA/DFI, private capital)
  • Strategic funding roadmap development
  • Application readiness and credit underwriting preparation
  • Financial modeling and sensitivity analysis
  • Risk identification and mitigation, and loan terms/covenant structuring
  • Negotiation support with agencies and lenders
  • Loan restructuring, workout advisory, and program (including policy & procedures) improvements

3. Project and Structured Finance (Origination & Underwriting)

  • Corporate, project, and asset-backed financings (domestic and cross-border transactions)
  • Transportation assets (rail, vessels, aircraft)
  • Energy, renewables, and clean/advanced technology
  • Mining (including critical minerals), telecom, and heavy industry
  • Political risk insurance and export credit and other agency/funding coordination

4. Portfolio Management & Risk Mitigation

  • Credit risk assessment. rating methodologies, and early warning monitoring frameworks
  • Performance reporting and covenant renegotiation
  • Distressed asset restructuring and recovery maximization
  • Federal asset protection strategies

Industry Expertise, including Infrastructure, Transportation, Energy & Critical Minerals

  • Large, complex infrastructure projects
  • Vessel construction financing, Shipyard recapitalization and modernization, Port infrastructure development and upgrades, and Cargo and logistics asset financing
  • Rolling stock, locomotive financing, and multimodal corridor and freight investments
  • Renewable energy and emerging technology project finance, including wind, solar, geothermal, energy storage, and clean technology investments
  • Power generation (including traditional and nuclear), oil & gas, telecom, and energy infrastructure financings across domestic and international markets
  • Critical minerals, mining, and industrial sector project finance transactions

Advisory Perspective

Advisory perspective

Complex financings require realism about financial assumptions, risk allocation, and execution. Clear structuring at the front end prevents avoidable misalignment later.

Financing decisions should not be reduced to structure alone. The critical question is whether the organization understands the long-term commitments, compliance obligations, and risks that capital will lock in.

Credit and funding programs require evaluation and governance discipline early. Oversight structures, accountability, and decision frameworks shape whether the funding commitment remains viable after capital is deployed.

Next Step

Engage directly with expert-led advisory

SERJON's consulting model is designed around senior attention, credible judgment, and practical support for high-consequence decisions.

Consultation

A concise conversation can help determine scope, urgency, and the right advisory path.

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