Pinnacle Financial Partners Recruits 6 Veteran Financial Professionals for Expansion to Washington, D.C. and National Capital Region

The team will bring Pinnacle to the 6th largest MSA in the nation

Pinnacle Financial Partners has hired six experienced and proven financial professionals to lead the firm’s expansion into Washington, D.C. and the surrounding areas of Virginia and Maryland. Carolyne Pelton, formerly the director of Aerospace, Defense and Government Contracting (ADGC) at Truist, will lead the team as Pinnacle’s regional president for the National Capital Region.

She is joined by financial advisors Lauren Shields, Masha Loughlin and Jessica Green, who also worked in the ADGC division at Truist, as well as commercial real estate financial advisor Matthew Nader and senior credit officer Bruce Sharp. The team will operate from a temporary space in the Tyson’s Corner area before moving into a permanent location in 2022.

“This is exactly the team we need to build our firm in the National Capital Region,” said Rick Callicutt, Pinnacle chairman for the Carolinas and Virginia. “They have the necessary experience, networks and hearts to serve to make our firm successful in a new and powerful market. And they chose Pinnacle because of our award-winning culture, our focus on the associate and client experience and our relationship style of banking. We are set up for expansion teams to thrive because we provide them all they need to serve clients. It’s what has made Pinnacle such a powerful recruiter and desirable workplace throughout our history.”

Clockwise: Lauren Shields, Masha Loughlin, Carolyne Pelton, Bruce Sharp, Matthew Nader, Jessica Green

Pelton has 21 years of experience in banking at BB&T, now Truist, where she has focused on serving the industries of the D.C. Metro and Mid-Atlantic area. Throughout her career, she has built and led large teams of high-performing bankers and was consistently ranked as one of the top performers in the entire firm. Before her most recent director role, she was a regional corporate banking manager, a corporate banker and business banking cluster leader. She earned her bachelor’s degree and MBA from Western Carolina University, and she graduated from the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University. She has enjoyed fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Pelton has been based in the region for essentially her entire career and will leverage that experience to hire the best bankers in the market and extend Pinnacle’s culture of distinctive service and effective advice into the area.

“The opportunity to build a bank and a team from the ground up in the Washington area is a dream come true,” Pelton said. “The D.C. area is a unique market that’s already thriving but still has an incredible amount of potential. Given the concentration of government contractors, private equity, technology, real estate development and nonprofit associations, this area is one of the most vibrant in the nation.

“Pinnacle is perfectly positioned to succeed because of its unique combination of distinctive client service and the resources to bank major industry players. It’s a values and relationship-based firm, a longtime partner to its clients and one of the best places to work anywhere in the country. Now with statewide reach in Virginia, we have a huge runway to build something special. We’re all grateful for the chance to be part of it, and we’re looking for more of the best and brightest D.C. bankers to join us.”

In addition to Pelton, the National Capital team includes:

Lauren Shields – Financial Advisor
Shields brings 15 years of financial services experience to Pinnacle, most recently serving as a senior vice president of ADGC lending at Truist working with middle-market clients, where she was among the top relationship managers. Prior to that, she spent 13 years at BB&T in D.C. as a regional corporate banker and portfolio manager. As part of her work, she led client education events on complex topics like M&A, joint ventures and contract bidding strategies.

Shields earned her bachelor’s degree from The George Washington University and her MBA from Georgetown University. She is on the board of directors and is a past chair at the mental health and suicide prevention nonprofit PRS, Inc. in Alexandria, VA.

Masha Loughlin – Financial Advisor
Loughlin has 14 years of experience at Truist, where she was a senior vice president of ADGC lending. She was one of the top ranked relationship managers firmwide and worked to support bankers throughout the country on lead generation and deal analysis. Previously, she was a middle-market relationship manager for BB&T in Northern Virginia.

Loughlin earned her bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame College and her MBA at Georgetown University.

Jessica Green – Financial Advisor
Green brings 14 years of experience, most recently as a vice president for ADGC at Truist. In this role, she was highly successful in retaining clients through multiple merger integrations and conversions. She has also served as a middle-market and a top-ranked commercial deposit banker specializing in complex deposit solutions at BB&T.

Green earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Georgia and is completing her MBA from George Mason University. She serves as a financial mentor at A Wider Circle in Silver Spring, MD, a social services nonprofit combating poverty.

Matthew Nader – Financial Advisor
Nader brings 12 years of financial services experience to his role. At Truist, he was a senior vice president and CRE team lead for the Maryland region, with his team servicing an $850 million portfolio of CRE developers and single-family home developers. He was also a successful recruiter, helping rebuild his team during the recent merger.

Nader earned his bachelor’s degree at Colgate University and his master’s at The Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School.

Bruce Sharp – Senior Credit Officer
Bruce Sharp serves as the senior credit officer with nearly 30 years of experience in banking.

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Sharp served for 25 years at BB&T and SunTrust, now Truist. His diverse background includes roles in credit, sales and leadership, primarily serving the middle market. For 18 years he worked in the Greater Baltimore-Washington DC area, covering government contracting, nonprofits, commercial real estate and several specialty lending businesses.  More recently he was CEO of a home health care company.

Investor Notes
Initial cost of the investment into the National Capital Region is estimated to be approximately $0.02 to $0.03 per diluted share in 2022. This estimate also contemplates a forecast of $250-350 million in incremental total loan growth to previous 2022 estimates.

“In addition to Washington, D.C., we have now announced organic growth initiatives into Atlanta, Birmingham and Huntsville, as well as having hired many seasoned veterans in the specialty lending space, like equipment, franchise and solar finance,” said Pinnacle President and CEO M. Terry Turner. “Our growth goals for these markets remain intact, though obviously our goal is to outperform in all of our new markets next year. I personally look forward to what our new team members will accomplish in the many years to come.

“Pinnacle has earned a reputation as a leader in this style of market expansion because we can act quickly in putting together a team, launching an office and putting down deep roots in communities that are new to us. Our culture is our advantage. We are nationally recognized as one of America’s best places to work and the best among any bank of our size. It’s why top-tier teams like this are drawn to us and can’t turn down the opportunity to bring our bank to their hometowns. If we can do it successfully in Atlanta, Washington and others, we can do it anywhere in the region. No one is better positioned for this style of growth than Pinnacle.”

Pinnacle Financial Partners provides a full range of banking, investment, trust, mortgage and insurance products and services designed for businesses and their owners and individuals interested in a comprehensive relationship with their financial institution. The firm is the No. 1 bank in the Nashville-Murfreesboro-Franklin MSA, according to 2021 deposit data from the FDIC. Pinnacle earned a spot on the 2021 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For^® in the U.S., its fifth consecutive appearance. American Banker recognized Pinnacle as one of America’s Best Banks to Work For nine years in a row and No. 1 among banks with more than $11 billion in assets in 2021.

Pinnacle owns a 49 percent interest in Bankers Healthcare Group (BHG), which provides innovative, hassle-free financial solutions to healthcare practitioners and other licensed professionals. Great Place to Work and FORTUNE ranked BHG No. 1 on its 2020 list of Best Workplaces in New York State in the small/medium business category.

The firm began operations in a single location in downtown Nashville, TN, in October 2000 and has since grown to approximately $36.5 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2021. As the second-largest bank holding company headquartered in Tennessee, Pinnacle operates in 14 primarily urban markets across the Southeast.

Additional information concerning Pinnacle, which is included in the Nasdaq Financial-100 Index, can be accessed at www.pnfp.com.