Chris Wewers started on a banking career as a part-timer while in college back in 1991. His passion for the lending business hasn’t waned during those 27 years.
“With a stroke of a pen, we change someone’s life,” said Wewers, chief financial officer since 2015 at the nearly $1.3 billion-asset Southern Bancorp Inc. “That’s what I love about this business. We’re making a bet that they’ll take the money and do something special with it.”
Its namesake bank in Arkadelphia is one of the largest rural development banks in the nation and helps support a charitable sister company, Southern Bancorp Community Partners.
Wewers’ route to Southern Bancorp began in Arkadelphia with Merchants & Planters Bank/Horizon Bank and moved through Sparkman and its Merchants & Planters Bank to Fayetteville, where he became president of Community Bank of North Arkansas in 1999. Two years later, Wewers moved to Summit Bank of Arkadelphia, where he served as chief financial officer for nearly a decade.
In 2011, he joined the turnaround team of Harrison’s First Federal Bank/Little Rock’s Bear State Bank as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Along the way, Wewers served as CEO of the bank and its parent company before landing at Southern Bancorp.
He graduated in 1992 from Henderson State University at Arkadelphia with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and in 1995 from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a master’s in business administration.
His civic resume includes membership in Little Rock’s Rotary Club 99 and service as director of the Pay It Forward Foundation, which provides college scholarships for Lake Village high school graduates.
Wewers also serves on the board of directors of the Henderson State University Foundation and is chairman of the university’s School of Business advisory council.
See more finalists from the 2018 CFO of the Year awards.