Ken Cummings is an accomplished senior banking executive, strategic leader, and community advocate whose career has been defined by a commitment to building meaningful relationships, solving complex business challenges, and helping organizations and individuals achieve sustainable success. With more than 25 years of professional experience, Ken has developed a distinctive combination of financial expertise, executive leadership, business development acumen, and civic engagement. His career has taken him from frontline financial services and insurance into increasingly senior commercial banking and executive leadership positions, while his dedication to service has placed him in influential boardrooms, nonprofit organizations, chambers of commerce, educational institutions, and local government. Throughout that journey, he has remained grounded in a straightforward philosophy: understand the needs of the people and organizations he serves, build trust through exceptional service, and find practical solutions that create lasting value.
Ken currently serves as Team Leader and Senior Vice President at Southern First Bank, specializing in meeting the financial needs of privately held businesses, private banking clients, and mortgage banking clients. Describing himself as a “solutions provider,” he approaches banking as far more than a transactional business. He works alongside internal specialists to deliver comprehensive deposit, credit, and financial solutions while cultivating relationships built on responsiveness, credibility, and a deep understanding of each client’s objectives. As a Team Leader, Ken is also responsible for developing prospective client relationships, overseeing assigned portfolios, maintaining credit quality, achieving financial return objectives, and representing the bank throughout the local business and professional community. His leadership style reflects qualities that have characterized his career—persistence, collaboration, accountability, personal engagement, and an unwavering focus on service.
His progression into senior banking leadership was built through experience across some of the financial services industry’s most recognizable institutions. Prior to joining Southern First, Ken served as Senior Vice President and Senior Relationship Manager with Bank of America, where he worked within Global Banking & Markets and led the 12-county Upstate South Carolina region in the Global Commercial Business Banking unit. His impact extended beyond commercial banking responsibilities. He participated in the Upstate South Carolina Leadership Team, re-established and co-chaired the South Carolina BPG Group, and served as a workstream leader focused on advancing economic opportunity. His contributions earned recognition that included the 2019 Gold Award and Delivering One Company Awards in 2019 and 2020, reflecting an ability to produce business results while simultaneously strengthening organizational culture and leadership.
Earlier, as a Commercial Banking Relationship Manager III and First Vice President with SunTrust, Ken was responsible for developing and managing profitable commercial relationships with businesses generating annual sales of up to $100 million. His role demanded an integrated understanding of lending, deposits, treasury services, capital markets, credit solutions, client acquisition, profitability, and relationship retention. Before SunTrust, he served CertusBank as a Senior Commercial Relationship Manager and Vice President and stepped into an Interim Business Banking Manager role. At First Citizens Bank and Trust Company, he served as Area Sales Manager and Simpsonville Market President, combining direct business development responsibilities with the leadership of multiple business units, personnel management, profit-and-loss accountability, talent development, and market expansion. These experiences sharpened his ability to evaluate organizations from multiple perspectives—not simply as a banker, but as a leader responsible for people, performance, risk, growth, and long-term relationships.
Ken’s professional foundation also provides valuable breadth beyond traditional commercial banking. At Wells Fargo, he worked in consumer, mortgage, and automotive-related finance and became the first employee in his division from Wells Fargo Financial Acceptance to be promoted to manage a Wells Fargo Financial Store. His responsibilities included staff leadership, branch profitability, business development, and establishing relationships with automobile dealerships and finance partners in South Carolina and metropolitan Atlanta. Earlier in his career, his work with State Farm encompassed consumer and mortgage banking as well as property and casualty and life and health insurance. Collectively, these experiences have given Ken perspective across banking, lending, insurance, automotive finance, privately held businesses, professional services, and broader financial services—knowledge that allows him to understand how financial decisions intersect with operations, people, markets, and organizational strategy.
Beyond his executive responsibilities, Ken has built a substantial record of board, civic, and community leadership. He serves with the Greenville Chamber on its Advisory Board of Directors as well as its Finance and Investment Committees. He also serves with Bon Secours Mercy Health through the St. Francis Foundation, including service on the Foundation Board of Directors and Board of Regents, and he has served as Foundation Treasurer. In 2026, he added service as a Board Member and Finance Committee member for Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County. His longstanding involvement with United Way of Greenville County has included board and African American Leadership Greenville activities and Campaign Cabinet participation. These roles have given Ken practical exposure to governance, fiduciary oversight, financial stewardship, investment considerations, philanthropy, organizational sustainability, and the responsibilities that accompany representing diverse stakeholders.
Public service represents another important chapter in Ken’s leadership story. He served as a Simpsonville City Councilman from 2015 to 2024, bringing his business and banking perspective into municipal leadership with an emphasis on fiscal responsibility, economic development, infrastructure, and community collaboration. His approach connected sound financial stewardship with a broader vision for creating an environment where businesses, residents, and government could work toward shared objectives. His civic leadership has also included extensive involvement with the Simpsonville Area Chamber of Commerce, where he served in positions including Chairman, Past Chairman, City Representative, and Board Advisor. His broader community record includes leadership or service with Junior Achievement, Kiwanis International, the YMCA of Greenville, March of Dimes, Be the Bridge, and other community organizations.
Education, mentorship, and leadership development have remained important themes throughout Ken’s professional life. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Winthrop University, where he distinguished himself as an All-Big South Conference Track and Field performer and participated in campus organizations. He later earned an MBA with a management focus from Strayer University and completed executive graduate-level education. His commitment to developing others extended into higher education through service as an adjunct faculty member at Strayer University, where he taught courses including Business Law, Business Communications, Management Theory, Marketing, and Organizational Behavior. That teaching experience further strengthened an ability already central to his executive career: translating complex business concepts into practical insights that people can understand and apply.
Ken’s professional capabilities are particularly concentrated in leadership, commercial banking, finance, credit, business development, strategic planning, relationship management, sales, coaching, risk management, and team building. His documented professional skills also span mortgage and consumer lending, portfolio management, underwriting, credit analysis, treasury management, financial analysis, negotiation, customer retention, and cash management. This breadth gives him the ability to contribute to strategic discussions from both a growth and risk perspective—considering not only where an organization wants to go, but also the financial discipline, relationships, talent, and operational decisions required to get there. His professional record shows especially strong recognition around banking and leadership, alongside substantial experience in management and customer service.
Ken’s leadership has also been recognized beyond the organizations he directly serves. He was named among Greenville Business Magazine’s Top 50 Most Influential People and was previously recognized as one of Greenville’s Best and Brightest Under 35. He is a Riley Fellow through the Riley Institute at Furman University and has participated in leadership initiatives centered on community advancement and collaborative leadership. Yet the strongest measure of his influence may be the continuity of his service. Whether leading a commercial banking relationship, participating on a finance committee, coaching young people, teaching students, serving in municipal government, or advising community organizations, Ken has consistently placed relationship-building and stewardship at the center of his work.
That commitment makes board and advisory service a natural extension of Ken’s career rather than a departure from it. He is particularly interested in contributing to organizations across nonprofit, staffing, logistics, automotive, professional services, insurance, legal, accounting, and manufacturing sectors, while remaining open to opportunities across industries and organizations of varying sizes. He brings a valuable combination of executive financial judgment, commercial perspective, community connectivity, governance exposure, and experience working with organizations at dramatically different stages of development. Having served clients ranging from start-ups to sophisticated global businesses, he understands that effective leadership requires both strategic vision and the ability to adapt that vision to an organization’s particular circumstances.
At this stage of his career, Ken is motivated by the opportunity to convert decades of accumulated experience into meaningful guidance for other leaders and organizations. He views board service as an opportunity to ask thoughtful questions, mentor leadership teams, strengthen financial and strategic decision-making, and provide practical insights when organizations encounter growth opportunities or complex challenges. His personal interests in golf, coaching, nonprofit service, and consulting further reflect the themes that have shaped his professional journey: competition balanced by teamwork, achievement accompanied by service, and leadership measured by the positive influence one can have on others. Ken ultimately brings to the boardroom the perspective of an executive who has spent his career connecting people, capital, strategy, and community—and who believes that enduring organizational success begins with strong relationships, responsible stewardship, and a genuine commitment to helping others succeed.
Character:
Ken leads with integrity, service, persistence, and a genuine commitment to the people and communities around him. His sustained involvement in nonprofit organizations, civic leadership, coaching, education, and board service demonstrates that he views leadership as a responsibility to create value for others, not simply as a professional title.
Knowledge:
More than 25 years across commercial banking, lending, insurance, financial services, business development, and executive leadership have given Ken a broad and practical understanding of how organizations operate and grow. His experience in credit, finance, risk, relationship management, treasury services, sales, and governance enables him to evaluate challenges from multiple business perspectives.
Strategic:
Ken combines financial discipline with an ability to see the larger organizational picture, connecting growth objectives with risk management, talent, relationships, capital, and long-term sustainability. His experience advising businesses, managing portfolios, leading markets and teams, serving on finance and investment committees, and participating in civic economic development allows him to approach strategy with both vision and practical execution in mind.
Communication:
He has built his career on the ability to establish trust and communicate effectively with business owners, executives, colleagues, community leaders, clients, students, and public stakeholders. His experience as a relationship executive, team leader, adjunct faculty member, board participant, civic leader, and coach demonstrates an ability to listen carefully, translate complex subjects into understandable terms, and bring people together around shared objectives.
