IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 18, 2026--
ConsumerDirect Inc., an industry leader in helping consumers manage their credit, money and privacy, has expanded its board of directors with the recent appointments of three new members: Mark Marinko, Quy Nguyen and Jake Stickel. Each brings deep expertise in finance, operations, and technology that will strengthen the strategic direction and growth of ConsumerDirect.
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Mark Marinko brings more than 30 years of professional experience in accounting, finance, and business systems. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at SunCoke Energy, Inc., where he oversaw all accounting, financial operations and information technology. Prior to that role, he spent seven years as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation, a major provider of dredging services in the United States, where he managed public company financial reporting, investor relations, audit, taxes, financial planning and analysis, treasury, and internal controls. Earlier in his career, he served as President of the consumer services division at TransUnion, LLC, a global provider of information and decision-processing services. Mr. Marinko holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and business administration from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.
“What drew me to ConsumerDirect is a business with a clear sense of who it serves,” said Marinko. “I’ve spent three decades on the finance side of companies working through growth, and I’ve seen firsthand how much a strong financial foundation can do for a company that has already proven what it does well. I am thrilled to join the company and contribute to its continued success and growth.”
Quy Nguyen is the Founder and CEO of Allyance Communications Inc., where for more than 25 years he has helped Fortune 100 and enterprise organizations optimize their IT, connectivity, cloud, cybersecurity, AI, and data center strategies. Mr. Nguyen is also the Founder and CEO of Extraordinary Heroes, a private family foundation dedicated to expanding opportunities for underserved youth through education, health, workforce development, and community initiatives. An active investor and passionate philanthropist, he has held leadership roles with GTIA (formerly CompTIA), Wescom Credit Union, The Channel Company, Level 3 Communications, USC Marshall Partners, and other corporate and nonprofit boards, reflecting a lifelong commitment to creating both business success and lasting community impact. As a member of the ConsumerDirect board, he will join the Audit and Compensation Committees.
“I joined ConsumerDirect because I believe technology should empower people to make smarter decisions and create better outcomes. ConsumerDirect is building a platform that gives consumers greater visibility and control over their financial lives, and I see tremendous opportunity ahead,” said Nguyen. "As an entrepreneur, I've spent more than two decades building and scaling technology businesses by focusing on innovation, strategic partnerships, and delivering real value to customers. I'm excited to work alongside the Board and management team to help accelerate growth, strengthen the company's long-term strategy, and create lasting value for our shareholders while advancing ConsumerDirect's mission of helping consumers achieve greater financial confidence."
Jake Stickel joined CBRE in 2001 and has become a leading commercial real estate advisor, with 25 years of experience advising leading companies on complex real estate and business decisions across the U.S. and globally. Based in Orange County, he has also advised on many of the region’s most significant office transactions. Mr. Stickel works closely with senior executives to develop and execute real estate strategies aligned with their broader business objectives. His approach combines strategic advisory, transaction expertise and the resources of CBRE’s integrated global platform to help clients navigate critical decisions and achieve long-term business objectives.
“After 25 years of advising companies through strategic decisions that can shape their growth and performance, I’ve learned the importance of having a clear and compelling value proposition,” said Stickel. “ConsumerDirect has that at its core. I’m honored to join the board and look forward to bringing my experience and perspective to the company as it enters its next stage of growth.”
“Quy, Mark and Jake share the drive and commitment that has guided this company since the beginning,” said David B. Coulter, CEO and Founder of ConsumerDirect. “We’re a business founded on the belief that everyone deserves better and more accessible tools to understand and protect their financial lives. Their combined experience and passion will be instrumental in helping ConsumerDirect expand that vision. I could not be more pleased to have all three new members sit on our board and help grow our success, define our mission, and grow the company.”
To learn more about ConsumerDirect and its offerings, please visit www.consumerdirect.com.
About ConsumerDirect, Inc.
Founded in 2003, ConsumerDirect, Inc. is a subscription-based consumer fintech platform operating at the intersection of credit, financial intelligence, and privacy protection. ConsumerDirect delivers personalized, data-driven financial insights and services directly to consumers through a vertically integrated platform, supported by both direct-to-consumer and partner distribution channels. Unlike traditional SaaS or software models, ConsumerDirect is built on persistent one-to-one relationships with consumers and partners, positioning the Company as a consumer financial platform rather than a replaceable enterprise software provider.
ConsumerDirect, Inc. has 23 granted and issued patents covering its unique technologies and designs, along with 14 registered trademarks covering its various products and features. More about ConsumerDirect can be found at ConsumerDirect. Additionally, ConsumerDirect's primary consumer subscriber product is at SmartCredit.
Mark Marinko, Quy Nguyen, and Jake Stickel, Members of ConsumerDirect's Board of Directors
Mark Marinko, Quy Nguyen, and Jake Stickel, Members of ConsumerDirect's Board of Directors
Mark Marinko, Quy Nguyen, and Jake Stickel, Members of ConsumerDirect's Board of Directors
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Canada are negotiating in an effort to reach a truce on tariffs before a 12:01 a.m. Wednesday deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump.
If no deal is reached, Trump has threatened to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.
″We are negotiating,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Monday, speaking in French. “The negotiations are very intense and delicate. This is not the time to talk about negotiations in public.”
Carney and Trump spoke by phone Monday afternoon about the ongoing trade negotiations, Carney's office said, underscoring the last-minute push to reach a deal before Wednesday’s deadline.
The two countries have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other over sore spots like Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada’s protected dairy market.
Somehow they still managed to remain friends, allies — and trading partners. Canadian soldiers fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan after 9/11. The 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border is undefended, and nearly 330,000 people and $2 billion dollars’ worth of goods cross it every day; 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.
Trump’s belligerent approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has hit Canadian goods with tariffs — in a push to bring manufacturing back to the United States — and has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America’s 51st state.
The Canadian public is fed up. A petition to expel the U.S. ambassador, a Trump ally, has collected nearly 218,000 signatures since July 21. It accuses Ambassador Pete Hoekstra of having “normalized’’ Trump’s talk of annexing Canada, among other things.
Nearly 72% of Canadian goods exports last year went to the United States. And the Trump administration might be wary of imposing a hefty new tariff — paid by U.S. importers who try to pass along the cost to consumers via higher prices — ahead of November’s midterm elections. American voters are already frustrated with the high cost of living.
“I don’t think either side really wants these tariffs to come into effect,’’ said Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official. “There’s a pretty strong push on both sides to find an off ramp here.’’
Majerus said the United States is aiming to get Canada to buy more U.S. military equipment, including F-35 fighters; to take part in Trump’s “Golden Dome’’ missile defense; and to give the United States more access to critical minerals, thereby reducing America’s reliance on tenuous supplies from geopolitical rival China.
The Canadians would like relief from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as softwood lumber, which America says receives unfair government subsidies.
Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his second-term economic agenda. Last year, he imposed double-digit import taxes on almost every country on earth, justifying them by declaring the longstanding U.S. trade deficit a national emergency. The Supreme Court in February ruled that he’d overstepped his authority, striking down those tariffs and setting the stage for the federal government to pay refunds to importers.
Trump immediately looked for other ways to rebuild his tariff wall. Last month, he imposed import taxes of 10% to 12.5% on 59 countries and the European Union — which together account for 99% of U.S. imports — for allegedly failing to have or to enforce restrictions on imports made from forced labor.
Then he reached back to the Great Depression to find a cudgel with which to whack Canada, one of his favorite targets.
Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose 50% tariffs on products that account for about 5% of Canadian exports to the United States.
Nearly a century ago, with the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress passed the 1930 tariff law, imposing hefty taxes on imports from around the world. Known as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, for their congressional sponsors, they are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse.
Section 338 tariffs have never been used before. U.S. trade negotiators traditionally have favored another tool, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 — the provision Trump invoked for last month’s forced-labor tariffs.
Section 338 authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses. Unlike Section 301 sanctions, no investigation is required. Nor is there any limit on how long the tariffs can stay in place.
In announcing the Section 338 tariffs, Trump claimed that Canada discriminates against American exports of autos, alcohol and cheese. Trump is angry because Canada and China were the only countries that punched back with retaliatory tariffs of their own when he slapped levies on their products last year.
“If a country retaliates against us, we’re obviously not going to tolerate that,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters Friday at the Iowa State Fair. “We’ll take action. My sense is the Canadians, they want to have a more conciliatory approach, but we’ll see.”
The U.S. is renegotiating a North American trade pact — the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — that Trump strong-armed America’s neighbors into accepting in his first term. The threat of Section 338 tariffs gives the United States leverage to seek fresh concessions from Ottawa.
“From Carney's perspective, you need (USMCA) to be renegotiated,'' said Christopher Gundermann, fellow in the economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ”You can't renegotiate it with a massive trade war going on.''
But the Canadian public’s furor over Trump’s policies may limit Carney’s ability to cut a deal. Canada could retaliate again if the new 50% tariffs take effect, potentially aggravating a trade fight.
Canada’s government “cannot look like it is simply caving to the Trump administration’s demands,’’ said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “Making further concessions without getting something meaningful in exchange would probably lead to a strong backlash ... The risk is for the Carney government to make Canada look weak and, therefore, even more vulnerable to future trade and geopolitical bullying on the part of the Trump administration.”
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister for U.S. trade, met with Greer on Monday. He was tight-lipped afterward.
“The work is continuing,’’ he said. “We continue to do our job.’’
Gillies reported from Toronto.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc makes brief comments to reporters outside the U.S. Department of Commerce following a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in Washington, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press via AP)
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, center, leaves the U.S. Department of Commerce following a meeting with Canadian officials, in Washington, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press via AP)
