TowneBank announced the creation of new roles to lead its banking teams in Virginia and North Carolina. As part of its new board-approved leadership plan, Brian Skinner will become the President and Regional banking director for all markets in the state of Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina. Matt Davis will become the President and Regional Banking Director for North Carolina, including the Triangle, Charlotte, Triad and Greenville markets.
Additionally, Skinner, who has been with Towne since 2007, will have executive oversight for the specialty banking lines of real estate finance, commercial real estate finance and automotive dealer finance. He most recently served as head of Towne Financial Services Group, which oversees the company’s non-banking lines of business, including residential mortgage, insurance, real estate brokerage, wealth management and vacation property management. Previously, Skinner served as the company’s chief banking officer and before that as president for the Peninsula and Williamsburg Virginia markets. He is a graduate of Christopher Newport University.
Regarding Skinner’s leadership abilities, Executive Chairman G. Robert Aston, Jr. said, “Brian is a dedicated member of the Towne family with a proven track record of leading both emerging and seasoned financial professionals to exceed their potential and enhance the success of our company.”
Davis will lead Towne’s continued growth in its North Carolina markets, which are among the fastest growing for the company and represent areas of focused expansion in the next decade. A North Carolina State University graduate, he brings nearly 30 years of banking experience to his role, having served previously as Chief Credit Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Paragon Bank, whose merger with TowneBank in 2018 gave the company its entry into the North Carolina market. After the merger, Davis served as president of Paragon’s legacy North Carolina markets and was selected as the company’s chief strategy and risk officer in 2019.
“Matt is well-known across our North Carolina markets,” said Aston. “We value his steady hand and leadership expertise as we continue our growth in these areas.”
Stepping into the role of Chief Risk Officer with the shift in Davis’ responsibilities is John Wallace. Wallace joined the Towne family in 2019 as director of enterprise risk management with over three decades of experience designing and implementing operational risk management frameworks at major national financial institutions. A graduate of Miami University, Wallace is also a certified public accountant.