Key Bank is expanding its commercial banking business into both Southern California and Chicago, with the latter region to be led by bankers hired away from rival Huntington Bancshares.
The new lending teams in two heavily populated regions are focused on serving middle-market business clients. The introduction of commercial banking products and services into those markets will complement the capital markets businesses and specialized industry verticals that KeyCorp's banking subsidiary already operates in both places, the company said Tuesday.
Chicago and Southern California "show ripe opportunity for growth" among middle-market clients, Ken Gavrity, president of Key Commercial Bank, said in a statement. "We are going to continue to build over time and … make additional investments in talent" in both markets.
Banks are watching the middle-market and commercial-and-industrial lending space, in anticipation of increased loan demand and a greater sense of economic certainty now that the election has passed.
Last week, EverBank in Jacksonville, Florida, said that it is also expanding its commercial banking footprint into Southern California
Key's Chicago-area team will be led by Ben Van Vlerah, who joined the Cleveland-based bank earlier this month to serve as Illinois market president and regional commercial leader for Illinois and Northern Indiana. Van Vlerah was most recently a commercial regional manager at Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington, overseeing Illinois and Wisconsin, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Prior to working for more than eight years at Huntington, Van Vlerah was employed by FirstMerit Bank in Chicago, which was acquired by Huntington in 2016. He will report to Christopher Doyle, Key's Central Region commercial leader, a company spokesperson said in an email.
Reporting to Van Vlerah are Gavin Newman, Ryan Ferris, Taylor Fraleigh — all of whom joined Key from Huntington — and Anthony Balthazor, who joined from Wintrust Financial in Rosemont, Illinois. Balthazor has also worked at Huntington and FirstMerit, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Newman and Ferris have been hired as commercial leaders at Key, the bank said in a press release announcing the expansion. Fraleigh and Balthazor are senior relationship managers.
Meanwhile, Robert Besser will be leading Key's commercial banking team in Southern California. A managing director at KeyBanc Capital Markets for the past three years, Besser has been promoted to the role of commercial leader and will report to Matt Hill, who is Key's regional commercial leader for California, Washington and Alaska, the bank said in the press release.
Prior to joining Key in 2021, Besser worked in the capital markets-corporate banking arena at Truist Financial, according to his LinkedIn profile, as well as at Truist's predecessor bank, BB&T.
Besser will have a team of four bankers, including two new hires — James Gibson, a senior relationship manager, who comes to Key from Bank of Montreal; and Trevor Mates, who joins Key from JPMorgan Chase. At Key, Mates will be a senior payments advisor.
Rounding out Key's team in Southern California is Erica Elsasser, who is a senior relationship manager, and Elizabeth Bui, an associate who will help support the expansion, the bank said in the release.
Elsasser joined KeyBanc Capital Markets in 2009 and most recently was a director in that business, according to her LinkedIn profile. Bui joined the capital markets division in 2022 and most recently worked as a senior equity research associate, her LinkedIn profile shows.
