After a 46-year career in banking that included engagement with numerous civic groups and a position as one of the top Regions Bank executives in metro Atlanta, Bill Linginfelter will retire at the end of this year.
Linginfelter is the bank’s Atlanta market executive and commercial banking regional executive for Georgia and the Carolinas. Mary Beth Coke, who joined Regions last year, has been named as his successor.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed what I’ve done on my career,” Linginfelter said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “From a life standpoint, I was ready to pick up and do some other things.”
Linginfelter came to Regions in 2008. He began his banking career in 1978 with Fulton National Bank, a predecessor of Bank of America. He was later Georgia chief executive for SouthTrust Bank and Wachovia Bank.
Linginfelter has been chair at various times of the Metro Atlanta and Georgia chambers of commerce, the Georgia Research Alliance and the Woodruff Arts Center’s corporate campaign.
Birmingham-based Regions Bank has a presence in 15 states, including 117 locations in Georgia with about 1,150 employees. Regions ranked as the seventh largest bank by deposits in metro Atlanta as of June last year, the most recent data available from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Linginfelter was praised in a statement by John Turner, the chairman, president and chief executive of Regions Financial Corp. “Bill leads by helping associates discover their talents and empowering them to flourish in ways that benefit the bank, its customers, and the communities we serve.”
Linginfelter’s career spanned a range of economic situations from robust booms that saw metro Atlanta grow into an economic power to downturns that shook the financial system.
In that time, some banking practices have changed dramatically, yet some basics are the same, he said. “We still take deposits. We still lend it out at reasonable rates and we still get a margin that allows us to pay our shareholders.”
Yet the equation is not just a matter of transactions, he said. “It’s about shared value. It has to be good for the client, good for the bank, good for the shareholders and good for the community.”
Most of the hard times were manageable, but there were times that shook Linginfelter’s assurance. Worst was the Great Recession, which took down nearly 500 banks — including scores of community banks in Georgia. The banks in Georgia had large portfolios of real estate development loans and many developers were unable to repay after the global economic meltdown.
“That was the only time that I worried if banking could sustain itself as an industry,” Linginfelter said. “The Great Recession was a real test.”
Looking back, Linginfelter said he feels that business success is about personnel, even more than strategy. “If you don’t have the right people, it doesn’t matter what the industry is doing.”
Linginfelter remains active in the business and civic communities.
He is currently chairman of the board for the Georgia Allies and chair of Hall Management the College Football Hall of Fame.
He is also on the board of the Buckhead Coalition and the Atlanta Speech School.
“I look on it as an obligation to make the community I live in a better place,” Linginfelter said.
Atlanta has long touted itself as a place where business and civic leaders have cooperated to steer away from trouble and toward improvement. That reputation is deserved, he said.
“I don’t think it exists the same way in most metro areas,” he said. “When we have opportunity, we roll up our sleeves and go after it.”
Coke, who is currently commercial district director for Regions Bank, said Atlanta’s attractiveness as a place to do business and its desirability are intertwined.
“Companies want to be located in Atlanta,” she said. “People want to live in Atlanta.”
Looking forward to her new role, she said she is optimistic about the economy, partly because she thinks business owners responded so well to the crises caused by COVID-19.
“Businesses are more conservative; they have larger cash reserves,” she said. The pandemic was an unprecedented crisis that forced companies to adapt and “I think that made everyone more resilient.”
The ability to “pivot” is crucial, given the unpredictability of the past few years, Coke said. “I don’t think we’ve had a normal year in quite some time.”
