Stephen Ragland • CFO | Stone Bank | Little Rock
After 18 years with Acxiom Corp. in Little Rock, ultimately as senior director of financial planning and analysis, Stephen Ragland was lured back into the banking industry.
Mainly it was Marnie Oldner, CEO of Stone Bank, who pulled him back in. They had worked together at “the old Twin City Bank” — the one that ultimately became part of U.S. Bank — back in the mid-1990s.
“I’ve worked with a lot of leaders over my life, and she is probably the one that’s been able to energize an organization the most and set a direction the best,” Ragland said.
Between TCB and Stone Bank, Ragland did two stints with Acxiom separated by a year at Bank of the Ozarks, where he worked with then-CFO Paul Moore and CEO George Gleason, whom he described as “one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever had the privilege of working around.”
Now he is plotting the future of a bank charter that was the smallest in the state less than 10 years ago. From $12.3 million in assets in 2008, the former First National Bank of Altheimer had been reborn as Ozark Heritage Bank and then as Stone Bank by the time Ragland arrived early last year. Since his arrival, assets have doubled to about $220 million.
“Now we’re having to deal with the pains of growth. … It takes a lot to keep your arms around an organization that is showing tremendous growth,” he said.
Ragland worked on multiple acquisitions at Acxiom, experience that is proving valuable in evaluating bank deals. “We are always looking at acquisitions, but we’re definitely not going to be doing an acquisition just to do an acquisition,” he said.
“For a CFO nowadays, that’s where you have got to be: on the strategic side of the bank, to be able to model the business, how the financial variables change and the impact that will have on your plan.”
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