Shaza Andersen
CEO, WashingtonFirst Bank
In the two years since we last featured Shaza Andersen on this list, she raised $28 million in new capital for WashingtonFirst Bank, doubled its assets to $1.1 billion through the acquisition of another Virginia institution, Alliance Bankshares, and took the combined company public on the Nasdaq exchange.
The Alliance deal was a strategic one, not only because it expanded WashingtonFirst's branch network by 50 percent, but because it has given the company a platform to expand in fee-income generating businesses such as mortgages and in new DC-area markets such as suburban Maryland.
Andersen founded Reston, Va.-based WashingtonFirst in 2004. She serves on the Treasury Board of Virginia and on the board of Amalgamated Casualty Insurance, is a trustee of Youth for Tomorrow, a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners Leadership Circle and the founder of the WashingtonFirst Youth Foundation.
