BMO hires Halé Behzadi to oversee California market

March 28, 2025 2:22 PM

In this week's banking news roundup: BMO hired former CEO of Citi Private Bank Halé Behzadi to accelerate the bank's growth strategy in California; Pennsylvania's Linkbancorp received regulatory approval to sell its New Jersey operations to a credit union; Dream First Bank announced plans to gain branches throughout Oklahoma; and more.

New vice chair of California at BMO's U.S. subsidiary

BMO hires ex-Citi executive to oversee California market

BMO Financial Group's U.S. subsidiary has hired Halé Behzadi, the former CEO of Citi Private Bank in North America, to accelerate BMO's growth strategy in California.

Behzadi, who departed Citi in June after a 22-year career at the megabank, is now BMO Bank's vice chair of California, a newly created role focused on growing brand awareness, deepening client relationships and expanding market share across the Golden State, BMO said in a press release. Behzadi is based in Los Angeles and reports to Darrel Hackett, BMO's U.S. CEO.

The announcement of Behzadi's hiring comes one week after BMO announced that Tony Sciarrino had joined as head of the U.S. commercial bank. Toronto-based BMO, which boosted its presence in California with the 2023 acquisition of Bank of the West, is aiming to become a top-tier bank in that state. —Allissa Kline

Linkbancorp’s sale to a credit union gets regulatory go-ahead

Linkbancorp in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, has received regulatory approval to sell its New Jersey operations to a credit union, the $2.9 billion-asset bank-holding company said in a press release.

The deal with Philadelphia-based American Heritage Financial Credit Union, which was announced in May, is expected to close on March 31, according to the release. It was originally expected to be finalized during the second half of 2024.

The transaction involves the sale of three Linkbancorp branches in New Jersey as well as the associated loans, deposits and fixed assets that Linkbancorp acquired when it merged in November 2023 with Partners Bancorp in Maryland, the release said.

Post-sale, Linkbancorp will operate branches in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. It has 26 branches in those four states, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. —Allissa Kline

Budget gaps are shrinking at the Oklahoma state Capitol.

Dream First Bank to expand in Oklahoma with acquisition

The $690 million-asset Dream First said in a press release it would gain branches in Alva, Enid, Cherokee and Woodward, Oklahoma. It did not disclose financial terms or a timeline to close the acquisition of the $268 million-asset BancCentral.

"By joining forces, we can deliver greater value to our customers, invest in our communities, and build a more sustainable future for our employees," Taylor Horst, CEO of BancCentral, said in the release.

In 2023, Dream First assumed all of the deposits of Heartland Tri-State Bank of Elkhart, Kansas. Heartland failed after its former chief executive, Shan Hanes, was accused of embezzling funds from the $139 million-asset Heartland and its customers. Hanes later pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a charge of stealing millions of dollars from the lender. —Jim Dobbs

Kim Fisk

Triumph Financial in Dallas names three division presidents

Dallas-based Triumph Financial promoted three executives to serve as division presidents.

The moves were made to "strengthen its organizational structure and position the company for long-term growth and innovation in the transportation and financial services industry," the $5.9 billion-asset Triumph said in a press release.

Kim Fisk was named president of the bank's factoring division. She joined Triumph in 2012 and has served in key leadership roles within the factoring segment's credit, underwriting and operations. Fisk succeeded Tim Valdez, who became chairman of the factoring unit.

Todd Ritterbusch, president of Triumph's bank unit, expanded his role to president of payments and banking. David Vielehr, who was a senior vice president of Triumph's digital banking platform for the trucking industry, was named president of LoadPay. —Jim Dobbs

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Associated Banc-Corp hires commercial bankers from U.S. Bank

Associated Banc-Corp in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has hired a trio of commercial bankers away from U.S. Bank as part of a plan to grow its commercial lending pipeline.

Alexander Burke, Matt Flynn and Mitchell Hind joined Associated's commercial banking team in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 21, the $43 billion-asset company said in a press release.

Flynn is a business segment and region leader, while Burke is the Kansas City market leader. Hind joins the company as a relationship manager.

Flynn reports to Phillip Trier, head of corporate and commercial banking. Burke and Hind report to Flynn.

Associated launched an initiative to add 26 commercial and business bankers in November 2023. CEO Andy Harmening told analysts in January that the hiring was expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter. The bank is projecting commercial-and-industrial loan growth of $1.2 billion this year and total loan growth of 5% to 6%, Harmening said. —Allissa Kline

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Utah Governor signs earned wage access bill

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed H.B. 279, also called the Earned Wage Access Services Act, on Tuesday, marking the eighth state to regulate the financial product.

EWA providers in Utah are required to register each year with the state Department of Commerce's Division of Consumer Protection. Providers are also required to offer at least one no-cost option, transparent fee disclosures, the ability for users to cancel the service at any time without penalties, and tips, gratuity and donations must be "clearly and conspicuously" marked as voluntary.

The bill's ratification follows an EWA bill in Arkansas that categorized EWA as a financial product, which Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed last week. Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, South Carolina and Wisconsin have legislation on the books that regulates EWA products, and California regulates EWA products through its Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. —Joey Pizzolato

Joe Yurosek

City National Bank

City National hires Fifth Third executive to lead commercial banking

City National Bank, a unit of Royal Bank of Canada, has hired Joe Yurosek as its president of commercial banking.

Yurosek joins Los Angeles' largest bank from Fifth Third Bank, where he was regional president for Western markets, overseeing middle market expansion in California and Texas.

"In his new role, Yurosek will lead the line of business that drives commercial & corporate banking, specialty banking, capital markets, commercial real estate, consumer and commercial products, credit products and middle market banking for the bank," City National said Monday. —Mary de Wet

The leadership team and staff at Lakeside Bank

Lakeside Bank

Texas’ Lakeside Bank taps new president and CEO

Lakeside Bank of Rockwall, Texas, has hired Chris Williams as its president and chief executive officer.

Williams was a founding member of BTH Bank in Dallas, which merged in 2022 with Origin Bank. He most recently served as regional executive vice president at Origin, Lakeside said in a press release on Monday.

The bank said Williams will focus on enhancing efficiency; expanding banking products to elevate client service; and advancing technology to optimize operations and enhance the customer experience.

Williams succeeds Ana Rodriguez. —Mary de Wet

Heather Plumski

Stearns Bank

Stearns Bank splits president, CEO roles

Stearns Bank has split its top leadership roles, promoting its chief financial and strategy officer, Heather Plumski, to president.

Plumski will report to Kelly Skalicky, who will remain as CEO, the $3 billion-asset bank said in a press release.

It's the latest move for the bank, which has bolstered its leadership with new hires over the past six months and acquired Horizon Bank's Mortgage Warehouse Lending Division in January.

Plumski's new duties include overseeing day-to-day operations, driving Stearns' national strategic plan and championing product innovation. Skalicky will focus on driving the bank's strategic priorities and revenues, while continuing to increase employee ownership and engagement and maximize company value. She will remain as a member of the board.

Plumski will be the first president of Stearns after more than 60 years of Skalicky and her father in that role, Skalicky said. —Mary de Wet

IncredibleBank

IncredibleBank taps Alloy for identity verification

IncredibleBank, a community bank with $2 billion in assets headquartered in Wausau, Wisconsin, has partnered with Alloy, an identity and fraud prevention platform provider, to speed up the bank's account-opening process and reduce manual reviews.

"Before Alloy, our account-opening platform leveraged a single data source and was completely manual," said Phil Suckow, vice president of innovation at IncredibleBank. "Our application volume varied month-to-month, from a few hundred to a few thousand applications, requiring significant back-end resources during spikes. Now, everything is instant."

Alloy helped reduce application review time by 88% and manual reviews by 90%, according to IncredibleBank. This helped reallocate a full-time employee from application reviews to sales-focused tasks, according to the bank.

Other companies that provide end-to-end digital identity verification include Onfido, Socure, Persona and Sumsub. —Carter Pape

Mike Rossetti

Scott Levine

The Savings Bank creates small-business unit

The Savings Bank has created a team to focus on small businesses, led by Vice President Mike Rossetti.

It's the first strategic move announced by the Wakefield, Massachusetts, bank since it tapped Raichelle Kallery as its first female CEO in January.

The new team aims to develop personalized banking and lending strategies for each business, TSB said in a press release.

Rossetti joined TSB in 2021 and has experience in commercial deposit products and services, as well as small-business lending, the bank said.

In February, the bank hired Boston Firefighters Credit Union executive Craig MacKenzie as its chief operating officer, taking the role vacated by Kallery. —Mary de Wet

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Hancock Whitney gets regulator OK on acquisition

Hancock Whitney Corp. said Friday that its banking subsidiary had gotten the regulatory green light to acquire Sabal Trust Company, expanding the bank's wealth management services across central Florida.

The deal is slated to close on May 2 and be immediately accretive to earnings through fee income growth, Hancock Whitney said in a release. St. Petersburg, Florida-based Sabal has about $3 billion in assets under management, and four locations in the Tampa and Orlando metropolitan areas.

"This transaction is an excellent strategic opportunity to expand our wealth and asset management group within the high-growth Florida market and to add a strong team to our wealth and asset management business," said John Hairston, president and CEO of the $35 billion-asset bank, in a prepared statement.

Financial terms of the deal, which was first announced in January, weren't disclosed. —Catherine Leffert

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Miami-based bank taps two new executives

City National Bank of Florida, the $26 billion-asset U.S. subsidiary of Banco de Crédito e Inversiones in Chile, has tapped two new executives as it aims to grow its workforce by 20% over the next two years in efforts to expand its presence across Florida.

Michael MacIntyre joined the bank as chief banking officer, responsible for real estate banking, commercial banking and personal banking. MacIntyre has worked in a number of roles focused on growing U.S. market share for international banks, most recently at City National Bank, the American subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada. He also spent 18 years at HSBC, including as U.S. head of business banking.

City National Bank of Florida tapped Christian Sundblad as chief wholesale and international banking executive, and he will oversee corporate banking, specialty finance and capital markets. Sundblad spent the last 19 years at Citibank, and has held international finance positions in Argentina, Chile and Mexico. — Catherine Leffert

UC Berkeley hires three Biden administration officials

UC Berkeley's Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice has hired three officials from the Biden administration as senior fellows.

The three senior fellows are Seth Frotman, former general counsel and senior advisor at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Sam Levine, former director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection; and Doha Mekki, former acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice's Antitrust division. —Kate Berry