Lori Chillingworth
EVP, Small Business Division, Zions First National Bank
For years Zions First National Bank has been a top SBA lender in its markets, but Lori Chillingworth keeps finding ways to make this highly profitable business even stronger.
She recently simplified small-business credit applications, replacing four different forms for different kinds of products with a universal application, and she separated out underwriting for SBA loans from other kinds of small-business products.
The combined effect has been more, and faster, approvals and a tighter grasp on customer information. Chillingworth, whose business contributes a third of the bank's total income, also successfully moved her business bankers onto the Salesforce.com platform, and infused more of the commercial and industrial lending division's credit culture into staff deployed in the retail branches.
In the first quarter, small-business loan production among business bankers in the branches was 52 percent ahead of plan.
