When your bank loses its C-suite, the bench decides what happens next

One board fired three 22-year founders in a single stroke. One bank filled an empty credit chief seat in five days. Neither outcome was luck. Someone had a plan sitting on a shelf already.

Two California banks blew through leadership transitions this year, and they read almost like opposite case studies in the same experiment.

BayCom Corp, the Walnut Creek parent of United Business Bank, terminated its CEO, COO, and CFO without cause on April 7. All three had run the bank since it was founded in 2004 — 22 years. Six days later, on April 13, a new CEO, a new CFO, and a new Executive Vice Chair were seated.

CalPrivate Bank in La Jolla lost its Chief Credit Officer on July 3. No dispute, according to the company's own announcement — just a resignation. Five days later an acting CCO started while the bank runs a search for someone permanent. It's the fourth executive-level move at that bank since April.

The BayCom overhaul

On April 7, BayCom's board terminated CEO George Guarini, COO Janet King, and CFO Keary Colwell without cause. All three had been there since United Business Bank's founding in 2004. Guarini's severance alone runs $4,404,174, paid out over 24 months, per the company's own 8-K filing. King and Colwell each get $2,413,017.

The board didn't leave the seats empty while it figured out next steps. Effective April 13, Christopher Baron became President and CEO, Kevin Thompson became CFO, and William Black became Executive Vice Chair.

Look at where those three came from and the pattern is hard to miss. Baron ran the commercial and community banking platform at Banc of California. Thompson was CFO at PacWest Bancorp during the 2023 banking crisis, then CFO at Heartland Financial before it sold to UMB. Black spent four years at PacWest and Banc of California leading strategy and corporate development. BayCom didn't run a six-day search from scratch — it pulled from a bench of people who'd already lived through one California banking crisis together.

The CalPrivate bridge

CalPrivate Bank's version of the same problem looked calmer on paper and moved just as fast underneath. Chief Credit Officer Andrew Meitzen resigned effective July 3. The bank's statement is direct: no dispute led to it. Five days later, on July 8, Robert “Bob” Dyck started as Acting Chief Credit Officer — a veteran who's run credit at multiple regional banks — while the company searches for someone permanent.

That wasn't an isolated move. In April, CalPrivate brought on Michael Pierron, formerly of Banc of California, as Chief Operating Officer. The same week it named the acting CCO, it also appointed Robert Tidd as General Counsel. Four executive-level hires or exits inside about 100 days.

None of it points to a bank in trouble. CalPrivate's parent, Private Bancorp of America, reported $13.1 million in second-quarter net income — up from $12.0 million the prior quarter and $10.4 million a year earlier — and it just filed to uplist from the OTCQX to the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The leadership churn is happening at a bank performing well enough to go public on a bigger exchange in the same quarter.

What separates a bridge from a scramble

Both banks did the same three things, and both did them fast enough that the story never became “who's in charge here?”

• Someone was already reachable. BayCom's new leadership came out of the PacWest and Banc of California network. CalPrivate's acting CCO came in with decades of credit-chief experience already behind him. Neither bank found these people the week the seat opened.
• The interim role was named, not implied. “Acting Chief Credit Officer” is a real title with a real mandate, not a quiet promotion nobody announced. That distinction matters to examiners, to clients, and to the rest of the credit team wondering who signs off tomorrow.
• The permanent search started immediately, in parallel. CalPrivate said outright it's searching for a permanent CCO while Dyck holds the seat. The bridge and the real search ran at the same time, not one after the other.

If you're the banker reading this from the other side

A C-suite shakeup, planned or not, changes the calculus for everyone underneath it. Before you read it as a reason to run or a reason to stay, get honest answers to a few things:

• Is the “acting” leader actually staying, or a placeholder who'll be gone the moment the permanent hire lands?
• Does the credit box move under the new leadership — tighter or looser — and does that change what you can actually get approved?
• Does the new team's background match where your bank actually operates, or are they used to running a very different kind of book?
• Six months from now, is this the bank you thought you worked for?

None of that means bail. It means don't assume. A leadership change is information — use it.

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