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2024’s Most Powerful Women in African American Owned Banks

Posted on July 14, 2024 | 1 comment

Whatever glory belongs to the race for a development unprecedented in history for the given length of time, a full share belongs to the womanhood of the race. – Mary McLeod Bethune

African American Owned Banks (AAOBs) continue to decline, down to 16 since from 21 since we last highlighted African American Owned Banks’ Most Powerful Women in 2013. The decline of almost 25 percent of African American Owned Banks over the past decade has meant less and less opportunity across the board and for African American women that appears to be the case as well. As our institutions decrease, so then do our ability to create opportunities for our communities. African American women in AAOBs have seen an increase only in the board of directors with all other positions seeing a decline.

Even with that reality, the numbers in comparison to their counterparts is still much greater. The largest 50 banks which are all non-AAOBs have only 1 woman (2 percent) at the helm according to American Banker. African American women comprise almost 20 percent of African American Owned Banks CEO positions.

2024 Statistics (2013 Statistics)

3 CEOs/President (4 CEOs/Presidents)

1 CFO (2 CFOs)

10 Vice-Presidents (13 Vice-Presidents)

8 Board of Directors (7 Board of Directors)

We have done our best to find out just who are some of the amazing African American women serving as executives and directors at African American Owned Banks around the country. However, some banks do not have their management or board of directors listed so we are sure we missed a few talented women, but for now here is who we found and some of their stories.

*HBCU Alumnus

COMMONWEALTH NATIONAL BANK

Beverly Cooper, Board of Directors

Mrs. Cooper is co-founder of the voter education non-profit Stand Up Mobile: A Blueprint for US.  She retired after 15 years as President of The Christian Benevolent Funeral Home, Inc. a family- owned business for 96 years. 

CITIZENS TRUST BANK

Cynthia N. Day, President/Chief Executive Officer

In February 2012, she became the Chief Executive Officer, the first permanently named female CEO in the Company’s history. Under her leadership as Chief Executive Officer, the bank has reached many milestones including achieving its highest level of performance during its 100 year existence. Further, most recently, the Bank was ranked, by S&P Global, #28 out of the Top 200 Performing Banks in the Country in its asset band.

Iris D. Goodly, Senior Vice President/ Director of Client Services and Operations

LIBERTY BANK & TRUST COMPANY

Jaimmé Collins, General Counsel, EVP and SVP of Strategy

In addition to being General Counsel, Ms. Collins manages Liberty’s strategic initiatives, joint ventures, regulatory matters, and leads Liberty Community Development Corporation (Liberty’s real estate development affiliate) and Liberty Foundation, Inc. (Liberty’s nonprofit affiliate).

Ann Duplessis, SVP of Bank Administration

*Tammy Joseph, SVP of Internal Controls

*Rhonda McMillan, SVP & Chief Credit Officer (pictured bottom right)

ONEUNITED BANK

Teri Williams, President and Chief Operating Officer

Responsible for implementation of the Bank’s strategic initiatives, as well as the day-to-day operations of the bank. These operational areas include all retail branches, marketing, compliance, lending, information technology, customer support, legal, and human resources. Under her leadership, OneUnited Bank has consolidated the local names and product offerings of four (4) banks to create a powerful national brand supported by innovative products and services. She brings 30 years of financial services expertise from premier institutions such as Bank of America and American Express, where she was one of the youngest Vice Presidents.

Sherri Brewer, Senior Vice President, Chief Retail Officer

She has been in the banking industry for 30 years. She has held senior level positions in the areas of sales, operations and consumer lending. Her responsibilities include management of five retail branches as well as the online branch, the banks facilities, item processing operations and the call center. She also serves as the Security Officer for the Bank. She has successfully managed two system conversions and one item processing conversion during her tenure. Ms. Brewer has worked for Wells Fargo, Orange County Credit Union, Business Bank of California, and First City Federal Credit Union.

FIRST INDEPENDENCE BANK

Linda Forte, Board of Directors

MECHANICS & FARMERS BANK

Emma S. Allen, Board of Directors

Connie J. White, Board of Directors

ADELPHI BANK

Greta Russell, Board of Directors

Gabrielle Whittaker, SVP of Consumer Banking and Community Relations

UNITED BANK OF PHILADELPHIA

Marionette Y. Wilson, Secretary of the Board of Directors

Ms. Wilson joined the Board of Directors of United Bank of Philadelphia in 1992 as a founding director. She is now retired but was formerly the Co-Founder/Partner, John Frazier, Inc., Philadelphia, PA from 1981-2002.

*Evelyn F. Smalls, President and Chief Executive Officer (pictured bottom left)

Mrs. Smalls is President and Chief Executive Officer of United Bank of Philadelphia, a minority-owned and controlled, full service commercial bank. With over 30 years experience in banking and community development, Mrs. Smalls is responsible for the leadership and management of the Bank including setting the direction of the organization, communicating its vision and adapting the culture and operations to achieve success.

Prior to her appointment as President and Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Smalls served as Senior Vice President for Regulatory Compliance and Community Reinvestment. Her leadership helped establish the Bank’s community reinvestment model that has achieved consecutive “Outstanding” ratings from the Federal Reserve and FDIC since the Bank’s inception.

Mrs. Smalls received her Bachelor’s degree in Business from North Carolina Central University. 

Brenda M. Hudson-Nelson, Executive Vice President & CFO

Mrs. Hudson-Nelson has served as United Bank of Philadelphia’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for twenty-five years. Mrs. Hudson-Nelson has thirty-four years experience within the financial services industry. Mrs. Hudson-Nelson’s responsibilities include directing financial planning, implementing, and overseeing the Bank’s systems of internal controls, managing the Bank’s investment portfolio, and monitoring and managing the Bank’s sensitivity to interest rate risk. Ms. Hudson-Nelson ensures that the Bank’s Annual Report, SEC Reports and other Regulatory Reports are filed accurately and timely. 

She served as Treasurer on the Boards of Director for the South Street Dance Company, CHOICE, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Mercer County, and for Prevention Point Philadelphia.

Dimitria Davenport, Vice President, Community Banking & Compliance

With over 20 years in the financial services industry, she has held key roles within Training, Consumer Banking, Retail Administration and Human Resources.  Dimitria has spent the last eighteen years of her career working diligently to carry out United Bank’s mission of financially empowering people and businesses in the greater Philadelphia region. 

Dimitria serves on several Boards: The Executive Committee of The African American Chamber of Commerce, The City Schools and The New Hope Community Development Corporation.

CITIZENS SAVINGS B&T COMPANY

*Dr. LaDonna Boyd, Board of Directors (pictured top left)

As the fifth-generation president/CEO of the R.H. Boyd Family of Companies in Nashville, Tennessee, she’s a powerhouse of innovation and creativity, transforming the business landscape while championing social causes close to her heart.

She earned her bachelor’s in economics and with a minor in French from Spelman College, followed by an MBA with a finance concentration from Tennessee State University. She completed her with a Doctorate in Education with a focus on organizational leadership from Pepperdine University. She further honed her skills by earning two certificates in from Harvard University’s Extension School in Digital Marketing Strategy and Artificial Intelligence in Business: Creating Value With Machine Learning.

*Joan Fleming, SVP of Residential Lending and Community Development (pictured top right)

She is an industry leader- finding ways to produce results through her expertise, commitment and relationships. Joan has a passion for delivering value and benefit to her clients with an enthusiastic and friendly attitude. It is her commitment to serve the underserved by being an advocate for affordable housing and financial literacy. Her “thinking outside the box” mentality allows her to develop programs to ensure everyone can build wealth through homeownership. 

UNITY NATIONAL BANK OF HOUSTON

*Sharon E. Murphy, Board of Directors

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African America’s June 2024 Jobs Report – 6.3%

Posted on July 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

OVERALL UNEMPLOYMENT: 4.1%

AFRICAN AMERICA: 6.3%

LATINO AMERICA: 4.9%

EUROPEAN AMERICA: 3.5%

ASIAN AMERICA: 4.1%

Analysis: European Americans unchanged for a third month in their unemployment rate. Asian Americans saw an increase of 100 basis points and Latino Americans saw a negligible decrease of 10 basis points from June, respectively. African Americans had an increase in their unemployment rate of 20 basis points for June, a third straight month of increases and second highest in the past five months.

AFRICAN AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BY GENDER & AGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 6.1%

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 5.7% 

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS: 16.9%

AFRICAN AMERICAN PARTICIPATION BY GENDER & AGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 69.1%

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 62.3%

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS: 29.3%

Analysis: African American Men saw a decrease in their unemployment rate by 30 basis points and African American Women increased by 50 basis points. African American Men increased their participation rate in June by 80 basis points. African American Women decreased in their participation rate in June by 60 basis points. African American Teenagers unemployment rate increased by a volatile 300 basis points. African American Teenagers saw their participation rate decrease by 290 basis points in June, they are now at their lowest participation rate in the past five months.

African American Men-Women Job Gap: African American Women currently have 646,000 more jobs than African American Men in June. This is an decrease from 924,000 in May.

CONCLUSION: The overall economy added 206,000 jobs in June while African America lost 73,000 jobs. This is Africa America’s lowest employment in five months with declines in four out of the past five months. From PBS, “Meanwhile, the U.S. economy added more jobs than expected last month, marking the 42nd consecutive month of job growth; 206,000 new jobs were added in June. Government hiring accounted for more than a third of those, followed by health care, social assistance and construction. Unemployment also inched up to 4.1 percent, making it the first time it’s risen above 4 percent in more than two years.”

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Island Mentality: Alabama State University’s $125 Million Decision Highlights HBCUs’ Continued Failure To Connect With The African American Financial Sector

Posted on June 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

Negro banks, as a rule, have failed because the people, taught that their own pioneers in business cannot function in this sphere, withdrew their deposits. – Dr. Carter G. Woodson

What is an ecosystem? How do you develop an ecosystem? Can we develop an African American ecosystem? It seems to be a question that a room full of African American institutional leadership have little understanding of based on the institutional decisions that are continuously made. In their academic paper entitled Economic Ecosystems, Philip E. Auerswald and Lokesh M. Dani, “An ecosystem is defined as a dynamically stable network of interconnected firms and institutions within bounded geographical space. It is proposed that representing regional economic networks as ‘ecosystems’ provides analytical structure and depth to theories of the sources of regional advantage, the role of entrepreneurs in regional development, and the determinants of resilience in regional economic systems.” The most vital part of that definition being interconnected firms and institutions. African American institutions in general at every turn fail to understand this concept and HBCUs are no exception. This is especially true of HBCUs choice of banks and now Alabama State University’s recent decision to forego a plethora of African American Owned Investment and Asset Management firms and hand $125 million to another European American owned investment firm. African American capital once again reinforcing European America’s financial ecosystem – not ours.

It is almost a redundant story at this point. African American institutions all operating on their own island and failing to interconnect and intertwine with each other. African America from individual to institutions all do what is best for themselves individually and not what is best for the collective and certainly not what connects and strengthens the collective. See Hampton University and North Carolina A&T State University decisions to leave an HBCU conference for a PWI one. To that vein is why over 90 percent of African America’s $100 billion in annual tuition revenue goes into PWIs and not HBCUs/PBIs. HBCUs provide very little means of an example for the community to follow. Instead, HBCUs are a glaring headlight of just how poorly African American institutions perform in strategically integrating themselves within the African American ecosystem, especially economically. There are no reports on HBCUs engagement with the African American private sector because HBCUs do not seemingly see that as important. How many of HBCU graduates work for African American owned companies? How much HBCU athletic sponsorship dollars come from African American owned companies/partnerships? How much of the HBCU endowment is invested in African American firms? These are basic questions that any leadership of an HBCU should be able to answer. Unfortunately as Jarrett Carter, Sr., founder of HBCU Digest, once eloquently put it, “Many HBCUs are just trying to be PWI-adjacent.”

Is $125 million a lot of money? Context matters. To any individual, most would agree $125 million is significant. To institutions, it varies on size, scope, and goals. For African American Financial Institutions, almost down to even the largest of our firms having an $125 million account would see their bottom line acutely move. Providing perspective on the landscape, Pension and Investments reports, “The global asset management industry showed some signs of recovery in 2023, with total assets under management (AUM) rising 12% year-over-year to nearly $120 trillion, according to research by Boston Consulting Group.” For African American Asset Managers, “The largest Black-owned asset managers are responsible for more than $253 billion in assets, according to FIN Searches data. Vista Equity Partners is the largest Black-owned firm in the industry, with the private equity manager handling $103.8 billion in assets.” African American Owned Asset Managers only account for 0.2 percent of the global AUM. By contrast, the Top 10 non-Black asset managers have $22 trillion assets under management which accounts for almost 20 percent of global AUM.

The asset management firm that Alabama State University chose according to World Benchmarking Alliance, “Neuberger Berman is a private employee-owned investment management firm (leadership pictured above) headquartered in New York, USA. It was founded in 1939 and has offices in 39 cities across 26 countries. The firm manages equities, fixed income, private equity and hedge fund portfolios for global institutional investors, advisors and high-net-worth individuals. It managed USD 460 billion of assets (under management) in 2021 and employed 2,647 staff in 2022.” This means that Alabama State University’s $125 million is equal to 0.02 percent of assets under management for Neuberger Berman. A drop in the bucket. The entirety of assets at African American Owned Asset Management firms is only 55 percent of Neuberger Berman assets under management. Alabama State University’s $125 million would have lifted the ENTIRE African American Owned Asset Management’s AUM by 0.05 percent. A move that would have strengthened the African American economic and financial ecosystem.

African America as a community talks about the circulation of the dollar or our lack thereof constantly, but what is virtually never talked about is the circulation of the African American institutional dollar being the largest part of that conversation. It is a fairly accepted statistic that the African American dollar does not stay in the African American community for a day, while other communities see their dollar stay in their communities for weeks and in the case of the Asian American community for almost a month. We often think of the circulation of our dollar like everything else, on an island or as an individual. An individual going and buying food from even an expensive African American owned restaurant is $100-200, but an HBCU building a new building means the opportunity for a new loan worth tens of millions for an African American owned bank, it means tens of millions for an African American owned construction company, so on and so forth. Instead, Bethune-Cookman University borrows from a notorious predatory lender to the African American community in Wells Fargo and almost finds itself losing those buildings due to foreclosure.

HBCU alumni know little about the state of finances or the movement of the money at their alma maters. HBCU administrators either willfully withholding the information or inept themselves of the importance of the information and providing it. Both are problematic. The notion that HBCUs cannot find African American investment firms is a painful thought knowing that a Google search would bring up the HBCU Money African American Owned Bank Directory at the very least. The likelihood is more in line with what Mr. Carter said in that a good deal of HBCU leadership simply wants to be like their PWI counterparts is far more likely. This would explain the debacle “donation” accepted by Florida A&M University’s president recently where a simple Google search would have avoided such embarrassment. Instead, Alabama State University’s Neuberger Berman relationship and a plethora of others instances (a decade ago when we reported “Spelman College & Regions Bank – A Failure To Disclose”) is that likely they are simply mimicking PWI actions and unwittingly reinforcing the PWI/European American ecosystem to say the least. Unfortunately, that mimicking reinforces another community’s economic and financial ecosystems not ours and why you may never see OneUnited Field at any HBCU’s athletic facility. Because we are holding out for J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo to show us the same love they show PWIs. Not acknowledging those are not our community’s banks.

If HBCUs are simply going to behave as PWI-adjacent institutions, then it is hard to argue with why over 90 percent of African Americans who go to college are not choosing HBCUs. For many it becomes a question of why get a knockoff when they can get the real thing. After all their ice is colder. HBCUs, HBCU alumni associations, and HBCU support organizations as a whole are not making decisions related to African American institutions ecosystem’s interests and interconnectivity and that is most glaring in the poor institutional decisions we are making in regards to our institutional finances and endowments.

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African America’s May 2024 Jobs Report – 6.1%

Posted on June 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

OVERALL UNEMPLOYMENT: 3.9%

AFRICAN AMERICA: 6.1%

LATINO AMERICA: 5.0%

EUROPEAN AMERICA: 3.5%

ASIAN AMERICA: 3.1%

Analysis: European Americans unchanged for a second month in their unemployment rate. Asian and Latino Americans both saw increases of 30 and 20 basis points from May, respectively. African Americans had an increase in their unemployment rate of 50 basis points for May.

AFRICAN AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BY GENDER & AGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 6.4%

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 5.2% 

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS: 13.9%

AFRICAN AMERICAN PARTICIPATION BY GENDER & AGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 68.3%

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 62.9%

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS: 32.2%

Analysis: African American Men saw an increase in their unemployment rate by 120 basis points and African American Women increased by 20 basis points. African American Men decreased their participation rate in May by 40 basis points. African American Women had no change in their May participation rate. African American Teenagers unemployment rate decreased by a staggering 430 basis points, the second lowest rate in the past five months for the group. African American Teenagers saw their participation rate decrease by 100 basis points in May.

African American Men-Women Job Gap: African American Women currently have 924,000 more jobs than African American Men in May. This is an increase from 781,000 in April.

CONCLUSION: The overall economy added 272,000 jobs in May while African America lost 169,000 jobs. From Axios, “The big picture: The Federal Reserve wants to see signs the labor market is coming into better balance—that is, demand for workers catching up to the supply of them. Fed officials are all but certain to hold interest rates at a two-decade high at their policy meeting next week, as they wait for more evidence that price pressures are easing. Recent indicators have shown that to be the case: Data this week showed that employers are posting fewer job openings.”

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HBCU Money’s 2023 African American Owned Bank Directory

Posted on May 25, 2024 | 3 comments

All banks are listed by state. In order to be listed in our directory the bank must have at least 51 percent African American ownership. You can click on the bank name to go directly to their website.

OTHER KEY FINDINGS:

  • 11 of the 17 African American Owned Banks saw increases in assets from 2022.
  • African American Owned Banks (AAOBs) are in 16 states and territories. Key states absent are Maryland, Missouri, New York, and Virginia.
  • Adelphi Bank (OH) is the first African American Owned Bank (AAOB) started in 23 years.
  • Alabama and Georgia each have two AAOBs.
  • African American Owned Banks have approximately $5.8 billion of America’s $23.2 trillion bank assets (see above) or 0.02 percent. The apex of African American owned bank assets was in 1926 when AAOBs held 0.2 percent of America’s bank assets or 10 times the percentage they hold today.
  • African American Owned Banks control 1.7 percent of FDIC designated Minority-Owned Bank Assets.
  • 2023 Median AAOBs Assets: $168,701,000 ($150,072,000)
  • 2023 Average AAOBs Assets: $326,097,000 ($325,391,000)
  • TOTAL AFRICAN AMERICAN OWNED BANK ASSETS 2023: $5,867,738,000 ($5,531,655,000)

ALABAMA

ALAMERICA BANK

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Founded: January 28, 2000

FDIC Region: Atlanta

Assets: $17,282,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 9.5%

COMMONWEALTH NATIONAL BANK

Location: Mobile, Alabama

Founded: February 19, 1976

FDIC Region: Atlanta

Assets: $66,944,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 9.2%

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

INDUSTRIAL BANK

Location: Washington, DC

Founded: August 18, 1934

FDIC Region: New York

Assets: $739,181,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 2.2%

GEORGIA

CARVER STATE BANK

Location: Savannah, Georgia

Founded: January 1, 1927

FDIC Region: Atlanta

Assets: $81,906,000

Asset Change (2022): DOWN 2.5%

CITIZENS TRUST BANK

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Founded: June 18, 1921

FDIC Region: Atlanta

Assets: $741,413,000

Asset Change (2022): DOWN 8.1%

ILLINOIS

GN BANK

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Founded: January 01, 1934

FDIC Region: Chicago

Assets: $63,898,000

Asset Change (2022): DOWN 11.1%

LOUISIANA

LIBERTY BANK & TRUST COMPANY

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

Founded: November 16, 1972

FDIC Region: Dallas

Assets: $1,048,899,000

Asset Change (2022): DOWN 3.4%

MASSACHUSETTS

ONEUNITED BANK

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Founded: August 02, 1982

FDIC Region: New York

Assets: $755,706,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 1.6%

MICHIGAN

FIRST INDEPENDENCE BANK

Location: Detroit, Michigan

Founded: May 14, 1970

FDIC Region: Chicago

Assets: $607,167,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 29.6%

MISSISSIPPI

GRAND BANK FOR SAVINGS, FSB

Location: Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Founded: January 1, 1968

FDIC Region: Dallas

Assets: $161,125,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 38.9%

NORTH CAROLINA

MECHANICS & FARMERS BANK

Location: Durham, North Carolina

Founded: March 01, 1908

FDIC Region: Atlanta

Assets: $429,605,000

Asset Change (2022): UNCHANGED 

OHIO

ADELPHI BANK

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Founded: January 18, 2023

FDIC Region: Chicago

Assets: $43,945,000

Asset Change (2022): N/A

OKLAHOMA

FIRST SECURITY BANK & TRUST

Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Founded: April 06, 1951

FDIC Region: Dallas

Assets: $119,349,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 50.9%

PENNSYLVANIA

UNITED BANK OF PHILADELPHIA

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Founded: March 23, 1992

FDIC Region: New York

Assets: $55,719,000

Asset Change (2022): DOWN 6.2%

SOUTH CAROLINA

OPTUS BANK

Location: Columbia, South Carolina

Founded: March 26, 1999

FDIC Region: Atlanta

Assets: $524,934,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 29.5%

TENNESSEE

CITIZENS SAVINGS B&T COMPANY

Location: Nashville, Tennessee

Founded: January 4, 1904

FDIC Region: Dallas

Assets: $176,277,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 17.5%

TEXAS

UNITY NB OF HOUSTON

Location: Houston, Texas

Founded: August 01, 1985

FDIC Region: Dallas

Assets: $209,014,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 1.3%

WISCONSIN

COLUMBIA SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION 

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Founded: January 1, 1924

FDIC Region: Chicago

Assets: $27,374,000

Asset Change (2022): UP 11.6%

SOURCE: FDIC

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