Fulton Financial promotes execs as it digests Republic First

Daniel Wolfe

Fulton Financial in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is making changes to its executive leadership team.

Fresh off the hiring of a new chief financial officer who starts next month, the $30.8 billion-asset parent company of Fulton Bank has created three new management roles — chief credit executive, director of business banking and executive market president — and promoted from within to fill those positions, according to a press release. The new roles come amid a busy year for Fulton, which in April acquired substantially all of the failed Republic First Bank in Philadelphia.

The promotions are meant to "bring increased focus to core areas" of Fulton's business, Chairman and CEO Curt Myers said in the release. The changes include bringing the credit team "under a single leader with enterprise-wide responsibility" and adding market presidents to reinforce the bank's "commitment to local leadership and representation," Myers added.

Meg Mueller, who was Fulton's head of commercial banking, will move into the chief credit executive role and report directly to Myers, according to the release. Mueller will oversee the team that handles credit fulfillment across commercial, consumer and business banking.

Philip Smith, a regional commercial executive, will be the director of business banking and report to Andy Fiol, head of consumer and business banking. Jeffrey Rush, formerly the director of commercial sales, will be the executive market president and oversee three market leaders.

Rush will report to Fulton's president, Angela Snyder, the release said. Meanwhile, John Glover will succeed Mueller as head of commercial banking and join the executive management team. Glover, who was most recently the director of commercial markets, will also report to Snyder.

The promotions will take effect during the third quarter, a company spokesperson said Tuesday.

Fulton's executive management team now has 11 members, including newly added Glover and Mueller, who was already part of the group in her prior role. The team will soon include Richard Kraemer, the CFO "designee" who will join Fulton in early September. Kraemer, who was most recently the treasurer and deputy CFO at Valley National Bank in New Jersey, will succeed interim CFO Betsy Chivinski, who has been filling in since ex-CFO Mark McCollom resigned earlier this year.

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The leadership changes come as Fulton continues to grow into a larger regional bank.

It's working its way through the integration of Republic First, which was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. this spring after struggling for years to maintain adequate capital amid a particularly harsh proxy battle with investor groups. The transaction added about $4.2 billion of deposits and about $2.9 billion of loans to Fulton's balance sheet, Fulton previously said.

The integration of customers, teams and systems is expected to be complete by the end of the year, Myers told analysts last month during Fulton's second-quarter earnings conference call.

Separately, the company has begun an initiative that executives say will streamline operations, create efficiencies and leverage its investment in technology. Called "FultonFirst," the effort is moving into the implementation phase of the 12- to 18-month project. Executives have said they will provide more details about growth initiatives and cost-cutting opportunities in October.