Yuni Navarro joins Ocean Bank's board of directors

Published May 1, 2026 3:00 PM

Updated May 1, 2026 3:00 PM

1 Min Read

In this week's banking news roundup:

Ocean Bank in Miami named Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Yuni Navarro to its board of directors.
Indiana-based Interra Credit Union announced it will acquire The Hicksville Bank in Ohio.
JPMorganChase hired Keefe Bruyette and Woods' Chris Mihok as a managing director on its financial institutions team; and more.

Ocean Bank names Yuni Navarro to board of directors

Ocean Bank named Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Yuni Navarro to its board of directors, the Miami-based bank announced in a Thursday press release. Agostinho Alfonso Macedo, Ocean Bank's president, chairman and CEO, praised Navarro's leadership and institutional knowledge. "Her deep understanding of our culture, combined with her breadth of experience across human resources, operations, and enterprise strategy, will be an invaluable asset," Macedo said.

Yuni Navarro joined Ocean Bank in 1993 as a payroll clerk. Currently, she oversees operations divisions including human resources, IT and strategic implementation. She holds a B.A. in management and a J.M. in banking compliance from FIU, along with an AI certificate from MIT. She will continue her role as chief administrative officer while assuming her new board responsibilities.

Ocean Bank is the largest independent, state-chartered commercial bank headquartered in Florida, with $7.44 billion in assets. —Traci Parks

Indiana-based Interra Credit Union acquires Ohio bank

Interra Credit Union, based in Goshen, Indiana, announced it will acquire The Hicksville Bank in Hicksville, Ohio, through an all-cash transaction. This marks the first credit union acquisition of a bank in Ohio and represents Interra's expansion into Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio.

The boards of both institutions have approved the deal, which is now contingent on regulatory and stockholder approvals.

Amy Sink, CEO of the $2 billion-asset Interra Credit Union, said the decision was "about people, our members, our employees, and the communities who trust us," adding that the partnership will honor the legacy of both organizations. Greg Smitley, CEO of the $225 million-asset The Hicksville Bank, agreed, stating the partnership will keep the focus "on our customers and our communities."

Michael Bell, a partner at Honigman, representing Interra, noted the elevated pace of transactions, observing that some banks are making the "free market choice to transact with a Credit Union partner." —Traci Parks

JPMorgan hires Chris Mihok from KBW for banks team

JPMorganChase has hired Chris Mihok from Keefe Bruyette and Woods as the lender builds out its team covering financial institutions. Mihok is joining JPMorgan in July as a managing director on the financial institutions team covering banks, according to a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News. He'll report to Clay Robinson and Andrew Spicehandler, who lead coverage of North America banks.

A representative for JPMorgan confirmed the contents of the memo. A representative for Keefe Bruyette and Woods, or KBW, didn't respond to a request for comment. KBW is a division of Stifel Financial Corp.

Financial deals JPMorgan has worked on this year include Nuveen's £9.9 billion ($11.6 billion) acquisition of Schroders, Zurich Insurance Group's £8 billion purchase of Beazley and Banco Santander SA's $12.2 billion deal for Webster Financial Corp. —Ryan Gould, Bloomberg News

RBC hires Barclays’ Skilton to lead insurance investment banking in Europe

Royal Bank of Canada has hired Ed Skilton from Barclays to lead its insurance investment banking practice in Europe.

Skilton will start in early May, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News. He'll be a managing director based in London. A representative for RBC confirmed the content of the memo.

Skilton was most recently the global co-head of insurance and head of the financial institutions group for the U.K. at Barclays, his LinkedIn profile shows.

While at Barclays, Skilton worked on deals including the pending roughly £8 billion ($10.8 billion) sale of property and casualty insurer Beazley to Zurich Insurance Group and JAB Insurance's agreed acquisition of the U.K. life and pension business of Utmost Group.

RBC has hired eight managing directors across Europe in the past year. These include Rob Jurd, who leads industrials investment banking in Europe, Sean Weissenberger as head of chemicals for the region and Sergio Herrera as head of Benelux. —Crystal Tse, Bloomberg News

Citi hires JPMorgan’s Shukla as head of Asia infrastructure

Citi has hired Bhavin Shukla as managing director and head of infrastructure investment banking for Japan, Asia North, Australia and South Asia as the U.S. lender seeks to beef up its business in the region.

Shukla joins from JPMorganChase and will work on advisory, financing and origination of infrastructure-related transactions, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg News. A Citi spokesperson confirmed the contents of the memo, sent by Todd Guenther, global head of infrastructure investment banking.

Shukla will work closely with the regional heads of Citi's financial and strategic investors group, natural resources, real estate and others. At JPMorgan, he worked as managing director and head of Asia infrastructure investors coverage ex-Australia, and head of India infrastructure investment banking.

Citi brought in Vikram Chavali from Goldman last year as Asia Pacific head of global asset managers. Last month, it hired Anders Svensson as managing director and head of natural resources for its Australia and New Zealand capital markets and advisory team. Kaustubh Kulkarni, who joined Citi last year after 28 years at JPMorgan, became sole head of investment banking for Asia after Jan Metzger's departure for Standard Chartered Plc last month. —Manuel Baigorri, Bloomberg News