Pinnacle Financial Partners Builds Atlanta Team with First Local Associates

Veteran bankers Paige Collier, Susan Godbee and Matthew Ricks join the firm

Pinnacle Financial Partners’ Atlanta President Rob Garcia has begun building a team with three new additions to start 2020. Paige Collier, Susan Godbee and Matthew Ricks have joined the firm and will serve clients as the first Pinnacle associates in the market.

Collier is a senior lending officer. Godbee and Ricks are both financial advisors focused on commercial clients. All three come from Synovus Bank in Atlanta.

“One of the best things about Pinnacle is the commitment to being a full-service firm,” Garcia said. “That’s what we’re building in Atlanta with our first associates – all locals with deep roots in this community.

“We have one of the most well respected commercial real estate professionals in the region, a top-notch commercial banker and a veteran financial advisor who has served commercial, retail and private wealth clients. I’ve worked with them all for many years and know the high bar they set for client service. We are putting together a team that can do it all.”

Collier has more than 25 years of experience in commercial lending and commercial real estate. She spent 17 years at Synovus, most recently as the senior director of CRE in Atlanta. Prior to that, she worked for BB&T, Southtrust and as an acquisition manager for Baita International.

Collier earned her bachelor’s degree in corporate finance and investment management from the University of Alabama and her MBA from the University of Georgia. She also received a master’s in real estate from Georgia State University, the Wharton Leadership Certificate from The Wharton School and is a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking. Collier is the Fulton County board chair for the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta and a trustee of the University of Georgia Real Estate Foundation.

Godbee brings 18 years of experience to Pinnacle. She worked more than seven years at Synovus, previously the Bank of North Georgia, as a commercial lender, private wealth advisor and retail branch manager. She also managed branches for Meriwether Bank & Trust and Wachovia (First Union).

Godbee earned her bachelor’s degree in business management from Georgia State University and studied banking and finance at the University of Georgia. She serves with Children’s Legacy Advisors for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and is a past board chair of Advo-Kids CASA in Fayette County.

Ricks comes with 16 years of banking experience, all of it with the Bank of North Georgia and Synovus. He began as a personal banker but quickly moved into lending and working with commercial clients in 2006. 

Ricks earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Georgia and graduated from the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University. He was also a member of the 2013 class of Leadership Cobb.

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 2019 list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For^® in the U.S., its third consecutive appearance. American Banker recognized Pinnacle as one of America’s Best Banks to Work For seven years in a row.

Pinnacle expanded to Georgia in 2019 by hiring a team of local financial services professionals to start an office in Atlanta.

The firm began operations in a single location in downtown Nashville, TN in October 2000 and has since grown to approximately $27.5 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2019. As the second-largest bank holding company headquartered in Tennessee, Pinnacle operates in 12 primarily urban markets in Tennessee, the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia.  

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