Bankers of the Year: Where are they now?

January 3, 2024 9:47 PM

What happens to a Banker of the Year after the magazine issue is printed? We looked back at some of the awards we've given out since 2010 to see where the honorees are today. While several lead the same or different institutions or have sold their bank, a few have made headlines in other ways. Scroll through to see where these bankers have ended up.

George Gleason

Chairman and CEO, Bank OZK

When Gleason was named a Community Banker of the Year in 2010, he was the chairman and CEO of Little Rock, Arkansas-based Bank of the Ozarks. In 2024, he's still in that role at the bank he's controlled since 1979, today known as Bank OZK. It now has $32 billion of assets and is the largest bank based in the state, ranking in 2023 among our Top Performing Banks with assets of $10 billion to $50 billion. Its innovation labs also made our 2022 list of the Best Places to Work in Fintech.

Michael Kubacki

Board member, Lakeland Financial

Kubacki — who was chairman and CEO of Warsaw, Indiana-based Lakeland Financial and Lake City Bank when he was named a Community Banker of the Year in 2011 — stepped down as CEO in 2014 and as chairman in 2023. He remains on the board of the holding company and the bank, which was on our 2023 list of the Top Performing Banks with assets between $2 billion and $10 billion, and has announced plans to retire in the spring of 2024. Kubacki sits on a number of other boards in Indiana, including the state's economic development corporation.

Simone Lagomarsino

President and CEO, Luther Burbank

Named a Community Banker of the Year in 2013, Simone Lagomarsino was at the time CEO of Heritage Oaks Bank, which Pacific Premier Bancorp acquired in 2017. After the deal closed, she became CEO of Luther Burbank Corp. and Luther Burbank Savings. As chair of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, Lagomarsino found herself at the center of the 2023 banking crisis when the institution lent money to Silicon Valley Bank before its failure. She also serves on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Read her profile from 2013.

John Stumpf

Former CEO, Wells Fargo

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

John Stumpf's 2013 award for Banker of the Year came several years before the fake-accounts scandal would engulf Wells Fargo and end the CEO's career. A veteran executive of Wells Fargo and its predecessor banks, Stumpf found the sand eroding rapidly beneath his feet once the scandal came to light. He resigned in October 2016 and eventually paid a large regulatory fine, accepting a ban from the banking industry.

Read his profile from 2013.

James Herbert

Founder, First Republic Bank

Jamey Stillings

When Jim Herbert was named Banker of the Year in 2014, the company he founded in 1985, First Republic Bank, had grown into a California staple and a top choice of high-net-worth clients. But by 2023, Herbert, by then the bank's executive chairman, found his bank in the headlines in an unwelcome fashion as the banking crisis pushed it under. A bank run spurred the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to step in, seizing the bank and handing it to JPMorgan Chase. In the aftermath of the fire sale, the JPMorgan-owned branches even stopped handing out First Republic's trademark dark-green umbrellas to clients. Herbert's creation had become just another of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's many acquisitions.

Read his profile from 2014.

Harris Simmons

Chairman and CEO, Zions Bancorp.

Simmons continues to hold the chairman and CEO roles at Zions Bancorp. in Salt Lake City. A four-decade veteran of the bank, Simmons took over the CEO post from his father, Roy, in 1990 and was named Banker of the Year in 2018. His bank was named to our list of Top Performing Banks above $50 billion of assets in 2023. More recently, since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates after the pandemic, Zions has joined its counterparts in trying to cut costs, announcing job cuts in 2023.

Read his profile from 2018.