Claremont
Greene, executive vice president and chief lending officer at Ledyard National Bank in Hanover, fills the vacancy created when David Birkins, who Claremont recruited last year to succeed outgoing CEO Sherwood Moody, left the bank shortly before he was to take the reins in April.
Moody delayed his retirement until a new successor could be found. In the interim, Claremont’s board engaged an executive search firm to evaluate and recommend candidates, Moody said.
“We wanted to have someone with upper New England connections for us,” Moody said about the appointment of Greene, who oversaw the commercial, consumer and mortgage lending departments at Ledyard. “It just so happened that Reggie was close to home. His broad banking experience, his expertise in the commercial lending area, and his familiarity with the market we’re in were very compelling advantages” in his favor.
The 57-year-old Greene, known as “Reggie,” joined Ledyard in 2012 from Merchants Bank in Burlington, where he had been a senior vice president and regional manager of commercial banking. Prior to Merchants Bank, Greene worked at Chittenden Bank, now People’s United Bank, in Burlington.
Greene will be leading Claremont Savings Bank at a time when community banks are being consolidated into regional banks and are facing challenges from inroads made into their traditional brick-and-mortar operations from the internet. The rise of online banking is leading banks to close branch offices and offering an alternative method for consumers to obtain mortgages, an important revenue generator for local banks.
Last year, Vermont’s Merchants Bank, citing the impact of technology on its business, let go 6 percent of its workforce. (Claremont Savings recently closed its Cornish Flat branch due to a decline in customer traffic.)
Then in May, Lake Sunapee Bank Group, which has 35 branches in New Hampshire and Vermont, agreed to be acquired by Maine-based Bar Harbor Bankshares in a $143 million transaction.
But Greene has had his eyes set on running a bank for some time, according to his former boss.
“I knew this was something he aspired to do,” Ledyard Chief Executive Kathy Underwood said about Greene’s appointment to Claremont Savings and losing one of her top lieutenants. “I’m very happy for him. It’s a great career opportunity.”
Greene could not be reached for comment.
Claremont Savings initially had brought Birkins, a Connecticut banker, aboard in 2015 to succeed Moody. The plan was for Birkins to work for a year as No. 2 under Moody before becoming CEO. But Birkins, who never permanently relocated to the Upper Valley, quietly left the bank a month before the scheduled transition.
Moody at the time declined to elaborate on the reasons for Birkins’ departure other than to say “it just didn’t work out.”
Claremont Savings, which now operates in five locations, has 110 employees and assets of about $385 million.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com or 603-727-3219.
