Eagle Bancorp adds industry veterans to leadership team

Susan Riel has added experience to her team at Eagle Bancorp in Bethesda, Md.

The $9.9 billion-asset company said in a press release Tuesday that it has hired Sam Pepper as chief operating officer and Jeff Curry as chief risk officer of unit EagleBank. The executives will report to Riel, Eagle Bancorp’s president and CEO.

The new positions were created to strengthen “the overall operational and strategic management of the bank,” the company said in its release.

Riel was promoted in early 2019 to succeed Ronald Paul as CEO of Eagle Bancorp and its bank. The company’s board was overhauled later that year.

Eagle has been dealing with a series of probes into its treatment of related-party transactions and ties to Jack Evans, a former Washington councilman who resigned this year after accusations of ethics violations.

The company is very close to assets of $10 billion, a threshold at which banks face additional regulatory scrutiny and a cap on interchange fees. Banks often add to leadership team under those circumstances.

Pepper previously served as president and CEO of UFS Bancorp in Whitinsville, Mass., and its Unibank for Savings unit. In his new role he will oversee controls, administrative and reporting procedures, among other duties.

Curry was a managing director for the risk and finance advisory practice in Deloitte’s banking and capital markets group, where he focused on developing enterprise risk management frameworks. At Eagle he will be responsible for risk identification, mitigation and compliance.

“Their respective skills and experience are a great fit for EagleBank and both of them will work very closely with senior leadership in executing on the bank’s strategy,” Riel said.