Our Leadership

In addition to serving as NCN’s CEO/Chairperson, Pete Upton (Ponca Tribe of Nebraska) is the Executive Director of Native360 Loan Fund, a certified Native Community Development Financial Institution that focuses on entrepreneurship and financial literacy development for Native Americans. Mr. Upton has been involved with the Native CDFI Network since it was a grassroots movement. From 2011-2012, he served on the steering committee that was instrumental in the Native CDFI Network’s initial organizational development steps. In 2012, Mr. Upton became a founding board member and served as the Chairperson for the Peer Learning Committee. 

In 2023, Upton led the Native CDFI Network in a groundbreaking effort to catalyze clean energy infrastructure development in Native communities nationwide. The Native CDFI Network, in a historic bid, submitted a comprehensive application to the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, seeking several hundred million dollars to finance clean energy projects in Native communities through a collaborative effort involving 63 certified Native community development financial institutions and other qualified lenders across all 10 EPA regions. 

Serving as Executive Director of Native360 Loan Fund since 2011, Mr. Upton has built the organization from its start-up phase into a successful lending organization that continues to experience growth while ever increasing its community impact. As Native360 serves Native communities in three states, Mr. Upton understands the challenges of serving both rural and urban areas in various different jurisdictions. He values strong networks and cultivates partnerships to deliver technical assistance throughout a vast service area. Mr. Upton is a powerful advocate for equal access to capital.

Kristen Wagner serves as the Native CDFI Network’s National Program Director. In this role, Wagner manages NCN-funded programs, NCN Membership Programs, and oversees the design and delivery of capacity-building supports to NCN members. Dr. Wagner built her 25-year career with a commitment to building more equitable economies in Native communities across the country and Indigenous communities globally.

Wagner holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of North Dakota and a Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has taken the form of research, program design and implementation, policy advocacy, and leadership training.

In addition, she spent the past 15 years in classroom settings, individual mentoring relationships, and as a consultant providing organizational management support and training to asset-building practitioners and advocates to support economic equity in their workplaces, community decision-making processes, and broader institutional systems.Through these experiences, Dr. Wagner understands the day-to-day experiences and challenges organizations face delivering asset-building programs in Indian Country.

As a part-time consultant, Dr. Ian Record advises and advances NCN’s development and implementation of various NCN policy advocacy, policy research, and strategic communications initiatives. Dr. Record joins NCN after working for the past two decades with the National Congress of American Indians and the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy at the University of Arizona.