LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Broadway Financial Corporation (“Broadway”, “we”, or the “Company”) (NASDAQ Capital Market: BYFC), parent company of City First Bank, National Association (the “Bank”, and collectively, with the Company, “City First Broadway”), today announced the following executive appointments:
John F. Tellenbach, as Executive Vice President, West Commercial Regional Executive;
LaShanya Washington, as Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer; and
Sonja S. Wells, Executive Vice President, as East Commercial Regional Executive.
Mr. Tellenbach joins the Bank from Malaga Bank in Southern California, where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Credit Officer since December 2015, and was responsible for overall credit quality and growth with a primary focus on multi-family financing in Southern California. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Banking Officer with Sunwest Bank from March 2014 until the fall of 2015, and as Senior Vice President and Group Manager – Business Banking for Comerica Bank from June 2011 until early 2014. Mr. Tellenbach has over 30 years of commercial banking experience and has served as a member of ALCO, Credit Review, Community Reinvestment Act (“CRA”), Product and Pricing, Compliance, and IT committees of various community banks.
Ms. Washington is being promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer. She has served as Deputy Chief Credit Officer of the Bank since August 2022 and was previously Senior Vice President and Senior Credit Officer. Prior to joining the Bank in February 2019 as Credit Risk Officer, she served as Senior Credit Analyst and Bank Officer for United Bank in Vienna, Virginia, from late 2018 until early 2019, where she was responsible for underwriting Commercial and Industrial loans, and CRA loans, as well as responsible for establishing credit analysis procedures and training junior credit analysts. Previously, she served as Manager for Loan Servicing and Accounting for Capital Impact Partners from November 2015 until August 2018 and performed various lending and credit related functions with Capital One Bank from June 2011 until November 2015. Ms. Washington has over 25 years of commercial banking experience, substantially all of which has been related to credit risk analysis, and loan underwriting, reviews, servicing, and administration.
Ms. Wells will assume responsibility for all lending activities in the Bank’s east coast markets and continue to be based in Washington, D.C. She has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer, Commercial Banking, of Broadway and the Bank since the merger of Broadway Financial Corporation and CFBanc Corporation (“CFBanc”) in April 2021, and previously served as Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Lending Officer of the Bank since May 2020. Prior to that appointment, Ms. Wells served as Senior Vice President and Relationship Manager of the Bank from July 2015, Senior Relationship Manager with M&T Bank in Baltimore, Maryland from June 2002 to July 2015, and Small Business Relationship Sales Manager at First Union National Bank (Wachovia/Wells Fargo) in Baltimore, Maryland from May 1999 to 2002.
Brian E. Argrett, President and CEO, said, “I am extremely pleased to announce these stellar new appointments, beginning with the addition of John Tellenbach to our executive management team. As we have previously reported, we plan to continue to grow the Bank supported by the proceeds of the $150 million of equity capital that we raised last June, and John provides deep expertise, experience, and customer relationships that are vital to executing our growth plans, particularly in our western markets in and around Southern California in an intentional, strategic, and prudent manner. Given our growth since the merger of Broadway and CFBanc Corporation, the addition of John will fill an important role in our management team and provide the Bank with an even deeper pool of focused and experienced leadership.
“I am also pleased to announce the promotion of LaShanya Washington to Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer, stepping into and filling a critical position for the Bank. This promotion formally recognizes the outstanding work and leadership that LaShanya has provided to the Bank in various credit risk management positions over the past four years, most recently as our Deputy Chief Credit Officer, and we look forward to her further contributions in executive leadership across the Bank.
“In addition, I am pleased to announce that Sonja Wells will be taking broader responsibility for driving our disciplined loan growth in our eastern markets in and around Washington, D.C., and providing important leadership for our lending activities in the eastern U.S. Sonja has been an invaluable resource and partner as the Bank’s Chief Lending Officer since the merger of Broadway and CFBanc Corporation almost two years ago, and this new role will allow her to be keenly focused on our lending activities in the low-to-moderate income communities in our eastern markets.”
About Broadway Financial Corporation
Broadway Financial Corporation conducts its operations through its wholly-owned banking subsidiary, City First Bank, National Association, which is a leading community-oriented bank in Southern California and in the Washington, D.C. market serving low-to-moderate income communities. We offer a variety of residential and commercial real estate loan products for consumers, businesses, and non-profit organizations, other loan products, and a variety of deposit products, including checking, savings and money market accounts, certificates of deposits, and retirement accounts.
Stockholders, analysts, and others seeking information about the Company are invited to write to: Broadway Financial Corporation, Investor Relations, 4601 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 150, Los Angeles, CA 90010 or contact Investor Relations at the phone number or email address below.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our future results of operations or financial condition, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations and capital allocation and structure, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements often include words such as “expect,” “estimate,” “project,” “budget,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “believes,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue,” “poised,” “optimistic”, “prospects”, “ability”, “looking”, “forward”, “invest”, “grow”, “improve”, “deliver” and similar expressions, but the absence of such words or expressions does not mean a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements are based upon our management’s current expectations and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results or performance may differ materially from those suggested, expressed, or implied by the forward-looking statements due to a wide range of factors. Such risk factors include, among others: uncertainty as to the duration, scope and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; political and economic uncertainty, including the possibility of declines in global economic conditions or the stability of credit and financial markets for various reasons including the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine; changes in interest rates; changes in the monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. Government, including policies of the United States Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board; changes in legislation, regulation, policies or administrative practices, whether by judicial, governmental, or legislative action, and other changes pertaining to banking, securities, taxation, financial accounting and reporting, and environmental protection and our ability to comply with such changes in a timely manner; possible effects of changes in real estate markets, which may affect our net income and future cash flows, or the market value of our assets, including investment securities; the risk of possible adverse rulings, judgments, settlements and other outcomes of litigation; the risk that operational issues stemming from, and/or capital spending necessitated by, the potential need to adapt to industry changes in information technology systems, on which we are highly dependent, and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. All such factors are difficult to predict and are beyond our control. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described above can be found in our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K or other filings made with the SEC and are available on our website at http://www.cityfirstbank.com/node/430 and on the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov.
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