MIDWEST
Delaware Place Bank of Chicago has hired Dean D. Lawrence as its senior vice president of commercial real estate lending.
Mr. Lawrence was a group senior vice president at ABN Amro Mortgage Group Inc. in Des Plaines, Ill. He joined the ABN Amro Holding NV unit from another one, Chicago's LaSalle Bank Corp., where he had been a vice president of commercial real estate lending.
He began his banking and lending career in 1972 as an assistant vice president at First National Bank of Evergreen Park, now Fifth Third Bank.
Delaware Place Bank has $303 million of assets.
SOUTHEAST
BankAtlantic of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has hired the former president and chief operating officer of Office Depot Inc. as its chief marketing officer.
Mark Begelman headed the office supply store from 1991 to 1995. During his time there he oversaw the expansion of its store base from 127 to 467 and increased revenue from $900 million to $4.5 billion.
He left in 1995 and purchased a four-store music chain in south Florida, which he turned into Mars Music, a national musical instrument retailer that at its peak had 52 locations. (It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002 and sold off its assets.)
For the past three years Mr. Begelman has been the president of MDB222 Inc., a management consulting firm.
"Mark brings an extensive background in retail operations to BankAtlantic, particularly in both new store operations and in marketing for competitive retail environments," said Alan B. Levan, the president and chief executive officer of the $6.4 billion-asset unit of BankAtlantic Bancorp.
WEST
Great Basin Bank of Nevada in Elko has promoted Jean Sloan to senior vice president and made her its chief financial officer.
She has also been named the secretary of the board at the $171 million-asset bank's parent, Great Basin Financial Corp.
Ms. Sloan was a vice president and the controller of Great Basin Bank, which she joined in 1994.
UCBH Holdings Inc. of San Francisco has hired John Kerr as the chief credit officer and a senior vice president at its $7 billion-asset United Commercial Bank, which caters to Asian-American communities.
He succeeded Ebrahim Shabudin, who earlier had been named the chief operating officer and an executive vice president of the bank.
Mr. Kerr was a senior portfolio manager at Primus Financial Products LLC, a credit insurance unit of Bermuda's Primus Guaranty Ltd.
Before that he had been a senior credit executive at Bank of America.
UCBH has also hired Pauline Tse as United Commercial Bank's senior vice president and regional manager for Manhattan's Chinatown market.
Ms. Tse was a first vice president and the manager for the main Manhattan Chinatown branch at HSBC Bank USA. She joined the HSBC Holdings PLC unit in 1999 when the parent company bought Republic New York Corp. Before that she had been a first vice president at Republic National Bank.
A native of Hong Kong, Ms. Tse has 30 years of banking experience.
United American Bank of San Mateo, Calif., has hired Niki Wong as vice president of commercial lending.
Ms. Wong, who has nine years of commercial lending experience, was a vice president and a Small Business Administration loan officer at Bridge Bank of San Jose.
Before that she had the same job at Greater Bay Bank of Santa Cruz.
United American Bank has $110 million of assets.
