Brent Black
CFO & COO / Malvern National Bank
Brent Black has worked 14 consecutive years as a chief financial officer at four stops along a career track dominated by banking. The unbroken string began with a trio of Arkadelphia ventures.
After two years as controller, Black was promoted in 2005 to CFO at Southern Bancorp. That was followed by his 2011 hiring as CFO at Summit Bank and his 2015 move to Horizon Capital Partners as CFO after Summit’s sale to Bank OZK.
Black enjoyed his time at Horizon Capital but missed banking. Consulting work for Malvern National Bank led to his joining the $530 million-asset lender as CFO and COO in 2018.
“I decided this is a place I wanted to work full time,” he said. “They wanted to grow the bank, and I wanted to be a part of that. Our earnings and efficiencies are headed in the right direction.”
Black, a certified public accountant, has been a numbers guy since his days growing up in Benton.
His career path turned to banking while he was doing audit work in Little Rock with the accounting firms of Howland & Norris (1998-2001), where he rose to senior accountant, and Ernst & Young (2001-03), where he worked as a senior accountant focusing on financial institutions.
Black is a 1998 graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, where he received a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
He serves on the board of directors of the Wesley Foundation at Henderson State University/OBU in Arkadelphia, helps deliver meals for the Central Arkansas Development Council and is a member of the Arkadelphia Rotary Club.
Black is a past board member of the Community Development Bankers Association in Washington, D.C., and the KIPP Delta charter school in Helena-West Helena. He is a 2008 member of Leadership Arkansas and a 2009 finalist for Arkansas Business CFO of the Year.
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