Pinnacle Opens Office in Uptown Charlotte with New Team of Veteran Bankers
Financial advisors and wealth managers have moved into The Refinery
Pinnacle Financial Partners has opened a new loan production office in Charlotte at the Refinery building in Uptown. This is the firm’s fourth office in Charlotte and 14th in southern North Carolina. It is located at 1213 W. Morehead Street.
“Thanks to our tremendous growth in the market, we need more space to put our people and more locations to meet our clients where they are,” said Rob Ellenburg, Pinnacle’s market president in the Charlotte area. “This is our northern most office in the city, and it’s right where we want to be. It’s an exciting new development in a prime location, just a stone’s throw from the business district and Uptown residents. Pinnacle belongs in the heart of Charlotte.”
The Refinery office will house commercial and small business financial advisors, wealth management advisors, executive offices and administrative support. It occupies nearly 11,000 square feet on the fourth floor, and Pinnacle signage will soon adorn the outside.
Among the new associates joining Pinnacle’s Refinery office are two local recruits from Wells Fargo Bank, Mick Waszczeniuk and Jason LaPoint, each of whom bring a decade of financial services experience to their roles as financial advisors for Pinnacle’s client advisory group, which serves commercial clients.
Waszczeniuk was most recently a premier banker for Wells Fargo, serving affluent clients over the past three years. His other roles for Wells Fargo include personal banker and brokerage associate.
LaPoint’s role at Wells Fargo was assistant vice president and personal banker II, and his past experience includes serving as a branch manager for Wells Fargo’s second largest office.
Joining them in the Refinery office are John Forgan and Shane Brotherton, both from PNC Bank, and Melva Butler, who comes from Woodforest National Bank.
Forgan is senior vice president, financial advisor and area manager for Pinnacle’s Southern North Carolina region. He brings 26 years of financial services experience, most recently as a senior vice president and group manager at PNC.
Brotherton is a financial advisor who works with commercial clients. He has six years of financial services experience and comes to Pinnacle from PNC Bank, where he was a commercial relationship manager.
Melva Butler joins the Pinnacle team at the Refinery as a financial advisor assistant, bringing 10 years of financial services experience in the Charlotte market. Most recently she served at Woodforest, with past tenures at SunTrust Bank and Fifth Third Bank.
Another new financial advisor, Philip Moore, also recently joined Pinnacle’s Charlotte team, and is based at the firm’s Mooresville office. He brings 32 years of serving commercial banking, the past five of which were at PNC as senior vice president for corporate and institutional banking. Moore was also a market president for Wells Fargo, where he worked for nearly 16 years.
“Pinnacle’s strategy is to bring on the most talented, seasoned bankers in a market to form an advisory teams that serve clients who want a local relationship with people they trust,” Ellenburg said. “The Refinery office really shows the breadth of what we can do. We’re able to serve the lending and financial service needs of our business clients, and we’re building a top tier wealth team for their more complex and long-term financial planning needs. Even without a retail office to accept deposits, clients can get just about anything they need.”
As of June 30, 2020, Pinnacle held nearly $2.1 billion in loans in Charlotte, making it the second largest loan market in the entire firm behind only its headquarters in Nashville. Pinnacle is the 10th largest bank in Charlotte in terms of deposits according to the latest data from the FDIC.
Because this is not a full-service office, it will not have deposit capabilities or an ATM.
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. Pinnacle earned a spot on FORTUNE’s 2020 list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For® in the U.S., its fourth consecutive appearance. American Banker recognized Pinnacle as one of America’s Best Banks to Work For seven years in a row.
Pinnacle entered the South Carolina market in 2017 when it acquired BNC Bancorp. Pinnacle continues BNC’s practice of offering community bank service with the resources and sophistication of a larger firm.
The firm began operations in a single location in downtown Nashville, TN in October 2000 and has since grown to approximately $33.3 billion in assets as of June 30, 2020. As the second-largest bank holding company headquartered in Tennessee, Pinnacle operates in 12 primarily urban markets in Tennessee, the Carolinas, Virginia and Atlanta.
Additional information concerning Pinnacle, which is included in the Nasdaq Financial-100 Index, can be accessed at www.pnfp.com.
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