About Opportunity Group

Opportunity Group is headquartered in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas with an office in Kyiv, Ukraine. The company was founded in 2007 in response to the demands of public and private financial institutions to address the regulatory and asset management problems of troubled financial institutions.  The firm is actively engaged in the international development of the real estate and financial services industry in both the private and public sector.

Today, Opportunity Group is building upon the extensive experience of its principals in real estate, banking and accounting.

As you review our accomplishments, you will notice that each member of our staff has significant international and domestic industry experience which incorporates diverse and different views. Our management philosophy includes subject matter expertise which allows us to meet the needs of our clients. As an example, we have lived and worked in the same environments that many of our clients encounter every day. This allows us to bring a unique and relevant perspective to each assignment. What sets us apart from our competitors is that our principals have the technical expertise to do the work.

Our Team

You will find a wealth of individual and combined experience at Opportunity Group. Our staff consists of experienced professionals that our clients feel comfortable talking with about the complex issues they face every day. Our primary goal is for our clients to be successful. We operate with a minimum bureaucracy, which we believe translates into a better relationship with our clients. We provide a comfortable venue of honest dialogue that leads to positive results.

Terry L. Stroud – Founder & Chairman

Terry L. Stroud possesses an MBA in finance and banking and has over 35 years of experience as a Banking Regulator, Banker, and Consultant. His regulatory background includes senior positions at several U.S. regulatory agencies, including the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC), the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). He is also a Certified Fraud Examiner specializing in forensic investigations involving problem loans, other non-performing assets, insider abuse, and other governance issues involving management reporting systems.

During his career, Mr. Stroud has served as a conservator and special deputy receiver for troubled financial institutions, including commercial banks, thrifts, savings banks, mortgage operations, and insurance companies. He has over 20 years of international experience as a team leader responsible for restructuring the commercial banking sector and troubled assets in numerous emerging markets.

On these various international assignments, Mr. Stroud has worked with senior government officials at the ministerial level and elected legislators, judicial and court-appointed officers, as well as other government officials, in the drafting, adoption, and implementation of a wide variety of laws and regulations for commercial banks, mortgage companies, and non-banking financial institutions, including credit unions. His work includes developing risk management systems, including on-site policies and procedures and an off-site surveillance system used in at least a dozen countries. He has designed and implemented turnaround strategies for numerous state-owned businesses that ended successfully with private equity injection. These resolution strategies resulted in saving the financial sector tens of millions of dollars.

During his U.S.-based work, Mr. Stroud has significant experience in dealing with troubled financial institutions, including the restructuring of billions of dollars of troubled assets for federally insured institutions operating under federal regulators’ control. Specifics include:

• Serving as a senior conservator, which included total managerial responsibility for a group of severely troubled institutions with assets over $30 billion
• Serving as a special deputy receiver for the Texas Department of Insurance in the liquidation of multiple insurance companies

Mr. Stroud has also served as an expert witness in both federal and state courts on a range of issues, including fiduciary responsibilities, mortgage, and credit card fraud, legal and enforcement agreements, civil money penalties, removal, and prohibitions of executive officers and directors, and court-ordered Cease & Desist Agreements. During a recent assignment, he provided expert testimony on the largest bank failure in U.S. history. He has extensive experience in dealing with loan underwriting procedures, including valuing non-performing loans and other impaired assets.

During his tenure as a U.S. banking regulator, he provided both written and oral testimony to the banking committees in both the U.S House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate regarding bank failures.

Listen to Terry Stroud on The Round Table Group podcast.

Yulia Zorka – President

Ms. Zorka is one of the founders of Opportunity Group and serves as the firm’s President. She is a Certified Public Accountant, and currently manages all financial and contractual matters related to the firm’s clients.

She has been instrumental in integrating the home office and field office staff on reporting procedures for better management and integration of project costs and accounting. She has extensive experience in public accounting, finance, accounting and internal audit functions.

Her expertise involves dealing with GAAP, IFRS, and SOX compliance issues. She has extensive experience in evaluating major business processes and controls and assisting public and private companies with implementing process improvements and best practices. She has designed and performed audit programs and procedures on various financial, compliance, operational, and IT audits. She has created analytical tools for banks and non-bank financial institutions. These analytical reports were designed to illustrate the impact of management decisions on a bank’s performance.

These reports were designed to evaluate capital adequacy, asset quality, management performance, minimum liquidity requirements, and the quality of earnings. These reports assist regulatory staff and bank management perform a better analysis of an institution’s financial condition.

Ms. Zorka has expertise in preparing proforma financial statements and budgets. She holds a Master of Professional Accountancy degree and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Foreign Languages.

C. Danny Payne – Chief Technical Officer

Danny Payne, a native Texan, has served over 52 years in the Texas financial industry both in commercial banking and the bank regulatory arena. He has been at the helm as President and CEO of several Texas banks and thrifts (both state and federal) and has an extensive mortgage lending background, both as a mortgage banker and broker. As their Chairman, he was the recipient of the John T. Mahone Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Texas Savings and Community Bankers Association. While serving as a member of the TBA Community Bank Board, he received the Texas Bankers Association’s 2002 Cornerstone Award for outstanding community service through his commercial bank in Austin.  He served as the first Texas Savings and Loan Department mortgage broker Licensing Director in 1999 before returning to the private banking sector.  He was urged back to public service in 2004 and was sworn in by Governor Rick Perry as Commissioner of the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending (formerly the Texas Savings and Loan Department renamed by the Texas Legislature in 2005) until he retired from public service in December 2007. In that capacity and during his tenure, he was highly instrumental in assisting senior Texas lawmakers in the crafting of the Texas financial fraud and mortgage licensing statutes and amendments, approved charters for a record number of new state savings banks, initiated regulatory examinations/investigations, and commenced the statutory enforcement of Texas mortgage loan originators.

Previously, he served as the Austin Partner with Stone Advisors, L.L.P., a strategic management services, distressed asset, bank acquisition and buy-out firm headquartered in Dallas.  In that capacity, and in an affiliated role with Deloitte Touche, he served as an Asset Disposition Professional and a Senior Investigator assisting the FDIC in several receiverships/bank closings across the country.  He has also provided several consulting services to various banks, investor groups and attorneys over the years including, but not limited to, bank turnarounds, acquisition due diligence, special asset plan preparation and disposition, senior management evaluation and succession planning, assisting in business and strategic plan preparation, preparation and implementation of all significant bank policies and procedures (including training), risk management assistance, federal and state regulatory liaison, special board of directors and executive management consultant, special projects and numerous expert testimony assignments.

He served on TrustTexas Bank’s board from 2008 to 2009.  From 2011 to 2012 he served the Board of Directors of Coronado First Bank located in Coronado, California (Chairman of ALCO) and the Board of Directors of a Scottsdale, Arizona commercial bank. In November 2011, having been vetted by the FDIC and Comptroller of Currency, he served as acting President/CEO for a Phoenix, Arizona bank until the bank could be ultimately sold.  In early 2012, he accepted a Regulatory Supervisory Agent assignment in a West Texas bank on behalf of banking regulators.  In 2013-14, he served as a regulatory Compliance Assurance Supervisor to a global bank card issuer client reporting directly to the Board and the FDIC.  He presently serves as Advisory Director to Blackguard, Inc.

He attended Texas Tech University and served on the Advisory Board of its School of Community Bank Management.  With his penchant for furthering financial literacy and industry education, he has conducted numerous seminars, symposiums, workshops and instructed courses on subjects including real estate financing, first time home buying, banking principles, regulatory and Texas mortgage broker licensing, mortgage fraud, best practices in banking, Ethics in Banking, commercial lending and loan qualifying/underwriting. He was one of the first Texas banking industry instructors of basic consumer financial matters in the “Money Smart” educational initiative sponsored by the FDIC.  Throughout his banking tenure, he has been an instructor for the American Institute of Banking, Mortgage Bankers Association, Bank Administration Institute, the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University, and other consumer and financial industry educational providers. He remains active in the public speaking arena and has been a guest and featured speaker at various financial and lending trade association functions, conventions, special interest groups, state commissions/agencies, and consumer groups to address a wide spectrum of regulatory, consumer finance, and banking issues over his career. In 2018, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty at the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University instructing Ethics in Banking. In 2021, he joined the team at Opportunity Group, LLC, international financial industry and business consulting firm with offices in the DFW area as well as Ukraine.