Tamara Gurney, the veteran bank leader who built the only commercial bank based in the San Fernando Valley, is stepping back after 25 years of leadership.
Gurney, who led a group of local business leaders and bankers to found Mission Valley Bank in 2001, is passing off its day-to-day operations. As part of a succession plan years in the making, incoming chief executive and president Brian Carlson will take the reins on the bank to which Gurney devoted much of her professional life.
“I have been a very, very hands-on leader for 25 years at the bank, and it has been pretty much all-consuming,” Gurney said. “When you look at the life of a business … it gets to a level where there needs to be a handoff because a new person can come in and take it to that next level, and I see that as what’s happening here.”
Gurney will continue to guide the bank’s publicly traded holding company, Mission Valley Bancorp, as its chief executive and director, and as an executive chair and director of the bank’s board of directors.
Under her watch, MVB has grown to $800 million in assets and serves more than 6,000 clients across four locations in Sun Valley, Santa Clarita, Burbank and Arcadia. Its focus lies in Small Business Administration loans and specialty banking for unique or heavily regulated sectors that major banks avoid, like cannabis and card room operations.
Carlson, who has led MVB’s SBA lending since joining the bank in 2021, brings more than two decades of banking experience to the job. As president of Total SBA, the bank’s SBA and servicing platform that lent more than $210 million last year, Carlson has brought on and kept “top talent,” Gurney said.
“The SBA department has been a driving force in our revenue and one of our most efficient functions, and that’s because of (Carlson’s) leadership,” she said.
No ‘significant, immediate changes’
Carlson’s promotion doesn’t signal a new, stronger emphasis on SBA lending, Gurney added. And the new leader said he doesn’t expect to make “significant, immediate changes” to the bank’s direction.
“My priority is to preserve that approach while continuing to strengthen the bank for the future,” Carlson said in a statement. “I am grateful for the board’s confidence, thankful to (Gurney) for the institution and culture she has built, and excited to work with our employees and customers as we begin this next chapter.”
As Carlson takes the helm, Gurney will turn her attention to MVB’s burgeoning business areas and products, including merchant services and payments processing. She’ll also have more time to devote to the San Fernando Valley nonprofits and charities that have offered her board positions and special projects work.
“Connecting businesses to nonprofits and showing that your tax dollars need to be kept here,” Gurney said. “That’s something I feel strongly about and is likely to be on my radar as I work through transitioning out of this role,”
