Synovus Financial CEO Kevin Blair will begin chairing the bank's board of directors at the start of next year.
Blair will succeed longtime Synovus executive Kessel Stelling, who will continue as an advisor to the $58.6 billion-asset bank for another two years, according to a statement Synovus released this week. The leadership change follows Stelling handing off the CEO position to Blair last April after holding the role since 2010.
While Stelling rose in the leadership ranks at Synovus, starting in 2006 as president of Bank of North Georgia, the bank's subsidiary, Blair joined in 2016 after spending 18 years at SunTrust Banks. He left SunTrust as corporate treasurer to become chief financial officer at Synovus.
Based in Columbus, Georgia, Synovus provides commercial and consumer banking throughout the southeastern U.S. market.
The bank reported $194 million in net income for the third quarter, a 9% increase from a year earlier, and a 3.5%
In response, Synovus turned to the Federal Home Loan Bank System for additional liquidity. The bank's long-term debt grew from $1.2 billion to $4.4 billion during the third quarter, which executives largely attributed to the increase in Federal Home Loan bank advances.
Moving forward, the bank will be focused on generating new deposits and "mitigating some of the diminishment that's happening," Blair told analysts during the earnings call.
Synovus also announced this week the hiring of Michael Colasso, who will be the bank's enterprise and operational risk executive director. Colasso is joining Synovus from Truist Financial, where he led the bank's enterprise risk management programs.
