CRE Transaction Specialist (Axiom)

At Community Financial System, Inc. (CFSI), we are dedicated to providing our customers with friendly, personalized, high-quality financial services and products. Our retail division, Community Bank, N.A., operates more than 200 customer facilities across Upstate New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont and Western Massachusetts. Beyond retail banking, we also offer commercial banking, wealth management, investment management, insurance and risk management, and benefit plan administration.

Just as our employees are committed to helping our customers manage their finances, we’re committed to our employees. After all, they make it happen for our customers every day.

To ensure our people can enjoy long and successful careers here at CFSI, we offer competitive compensation, great benefits, and professional development and advancement opportunities. As an equal-opportunity workplace and affirmative-action employer, we celebrate and support a diverse workplace for the benefit of all: our employees, customers and communities.

The CRE Transaction Specialist supports the execution of commercial real estate capital markets transactions by ensuring a seamless and efficient process from deal handoff through closing and into post-closing follow-up. This role is responsible for coordinating transaction activities, maintaining organization of documentation, and supporting a consistent and high-quality client experience throughout the deal lifecycle.

The CRE Transaction Specialist serves as a key point of contact during the execution phase, facilitating communication between internal teams and external stakeholders while proactively managing timelines, deliverables, and issue resolution. The position plays a critical role in maintaining transparency, responsiveness, and accuracy to ensure successful closings and positive client outcomes. This role works closely with originations, underwriting, legal counsel, capital partners, and servicing teams to support workflow efficiency, minimize execution risk, and ensure timely completion of transactions. As part of the broader Commercial Banking platform, the CRE Transaction Specialist may also assist in supporting client service needs, including responding to inquiries, maintaining transaction records, and providing reporting or documentation as required.

Essential Duties:

• Coordinates the transaction process from deal handoff through closing, ensuring timely completion of all deliverables and adherence to established timelines.
• Maintains transaction workflows, checklists, and documentation, ensuring accuracy, organization, and completeness of all deal-related information.
• Collaborates with internal and external stakeholders (originations, underwriting, legal, lenders, title, and clients) to facilitate efficient closings and resolve outstanding items.
• Serves as a primary day-to-day client contact during the execution phase, providing updates and ensuring a consistent, high-quality client experience.
• Tracks due diligence, closing conditions, and outstanding requirements, proactively following up to mitigate delays and support successful transaction execution.
• Supports seamless transition of closed transactions by coordinating with servicing teams and ensuring proper handoff of documentation and information.
• Assists with preparation and organization of transaction materials, including lender packages, closing documents, and client deliverables.
• Maintains accurate transaction records and reporting, ensuring data integrity across internal systems and supporting pipeline visibility.
• Identifies process gaps or inefficiencies and contributes to improvements in transaction workflows and overall execution practices.
• Responds to internal and external inquiries in a timely, professional manner, supporting overall client service objectives and team responsiveness.

Ancillary Duties:

As an integral member of the Commercial Banking Department, this position is also responsible to provide assistance wherever necessary to help the Commercial Banking Department and the Bank in achieving their annual goals.

Education, Training and Requirements:

• Associate's or Bachelor's degree preferred in real estate, business, finance, or related field. Equivalent experience may be substituted.

Skills:

• Strong communication, organization, multitasking, Microsoft Office proficiency, attention to detail, ability to manage deadlines.

Experience:

• Minimum of 7 or more years of experience in commercial real estate, legal, lending, title/closing, or other relevant transaction, banking, or business-related experience preferred.
• All applicants must be 18 years of age or older.

Hours: 40 hours/week

Compensation: Commensurate with experience plus potential for annual merit increase. In addition to your competitive salary, you will be rewarded benefits including: 11 paid holidays, paid vacation, Medical, Vision & Dental insurance, 401K with generous match, Pension, Tuition Reimbursement, Banking discounts and the list goes on!

Physical Requirements:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee may be required to stand, walk, sit, use hands to finger, handle, or feel, reach with hands or arms, and speak and hear.  The employee may occasionally be required to lift and or move up to 25 pounds.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, and the ability to focus.

Work Environment and Environmental Conditions:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.  The air quality is usually moderate.  There is no or very limited exposure to physical risk.