Biography

Roman Okafor is the Senior Financial Educator at Big Daddy Loans, where she develops the explainer content, cost guides, and alternatives frameworks that help working households make better decisions about short-term credit. She holds the Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) designation from the AFCPE and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Wayne State University in Detroit in 2014.

Roman began her career at a HUD-approved housing counseling agency in the Detroit metro area, where she worked as a financial capability coach for three years. Her caseload centered on households facing foreclosure, utility shutoffs, and the compounding costs of payday loan rollovers that had begun as one-time bridge loans. She completed her HUD housing counselor certification in 2015 and her AFC® designation in 2017 while still in that role.

In 2018 Roman relocated to Kansas City to join a community development financial institution (CDFI) as Senior Financial Educator. Over five years there she built a financial-literacy curriculum for unbanked and underbanked households that was adopted by three regional community colleges as a continuing-education module. She also provided one-on-one coaching to CDFI loan applicants who did not initially qualify, helping them address credit-file issues and reapply — giving her detailed familiarity with how credit-rebuilding timelines actually work for borrowers with thin or damaged files.

Roman joined Big Daddy Loans in 2023 to bring that same alternatives-first, plain-language approach to a national audience. She authors the educational guides and reviews state-specific cost content to make sure the numbers are accurate and the framing serves readers — not the product.

Credentials

Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®)
AFCPE Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) · Active since 2017
HUD-Approved Housing Counselor
Certified 2015 · Inactive since 2018
BA Sociology
Wayne State University · 2014
Years of experience
10 years in nonprofit financial education and consumer-credit coaching

Areas of expertise

  • Payday loan cost structures — fee-per-$100 mechanics, APR conversions, rollover compounding explained plainly
  • Predatory lending awareness — common warning signs, phantom brokers, preauthorized debit traps
  • Credit rebuilding — secured cards, credit-builder loans, dispute-resolution timelines for thin-file borrowers
  • CDFI and community lending — mission-driven lender eligibility, loan-fund structure, referral pathways
  • Household financial capability — irregular-income budgeting, emergency-fund building, utility-assistance programs

Articles reviewed by Roman

Roman authored or reviewed the following pages on Big Daddy Loans:

Conflict of interest disclosure

Disclosure. Roman holds no ownership interest in any lender, lead generator, or financial-services firm reviewed on Big Daddy Loans. Her compensation from Big Daddy Loans is a fixed editorial salary with no per-application or referral component. She has no outside consulting relationships with commercial lenders or debt-settlement companies. She volunteers periodically with a community credit union's financial literacy program in her area.

Contact

For editorial questions, corrections, or interview requests, contact [email protected].