Nashville, Tennessee-based Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc. announced Jan. 17 it is entering the Jacksonville market and has hired a team of former Truist Financial Corp. bankers to run the Northeast Florida operations.
The team is led by Scott Keith, who retired as Truist’s regional president of North Florida in September 2021. Keith will be joined by former Truist Jacksonville Market President Debbie Buckland, who will be Pinnacle’s leader for commercial banking.
Pinnacle, a bank with $48 billion in assets, operates in 17 markets, mainly in the Southeast.
The company founded in Nashville in 2000 said it is hoping to duplicate the success it had in starting operations in the Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and the Huntsville and Birmingham, Alabama, markets since 2020.
“The area is very similar in makeup and growth to many of the other communities we serve, and it’s dominated by the same megabanks who are vulnerable to a challenger brand like ours,” Pinnacle CEO M. Terry Turner said in a news release.
“The North Florida region is incredibly deposit-rich, with nearly $100 billion available according to the latest FDIC data,” he said.
Pinnacle Bank has 162 branches, according to FDIC data.
Pinnacle said it is looking for space near Downtown for a full-service branch and other office functions, which it plans to open later in 2024.
Keith, a 34-year banking veteran, was regional president for North and Central Florida for BB&T Corp. before it merged with SunTrust Banks Inc. to form Truist in 2019.
He became North Florida regional president for Truist when the merger was completed in December 2019.
“Jacksonville is where I started and where I fell in love with local banking. We need a financial institution focused exclusively on service and advice and with a commitment to doing so consistently,” Keith said in the release.
Keith and Buckland both retired from Truist on Sept. 30, 2021.
Bryan Taylor, another former Truist banker, will be Pinnacle’s leader for middle market and government and not-for-profit in the region.
Vaughn Winmond and Fatima Bowen also joined the initial team.
Winmond is Pinnacle’s first financial adviser in North Florida, serving middle market and commercial clients with lending, deposits, cash management and more. His 15 years of experience includes 10 with SunTrust/Truist, where he most recently served as a commercial relationship manager.
Bowen joins as a credit analyst. She also has 15 years of financial services experience, much of it at Truist where she most recently served as a commercial lending portfolio manager.