Community & Regional Bank Search
The Executive Recruiter Group is a nationwide executive search firm specializing in commercial banking recruiting for community and regional banks. We work with established commercial bankers, production teams, and market leaders evaluating strategic career decisions, and with banks seeking proven talent who bring the client relationships and production history to support meaningful growth.
Areas of Focus
Our approach is direct, discreet, highly selective, and focused on fit between the banker, the bank, and the opportunity.
For Banks
We help community and regional banks identify and recruit established commercial bankers, market leaders, and production teams. We focus on bankers with long-term client relationships, strong production history, effective referral networks, deposit-gathering capability, and market credibility. When a bank retains us to fill a specific need, our work is built around direct outreach, practical market intelligence, and a clear understanding of what causes a successful banker to consider a move.
The bankers worth recruiting are rarely the ones applying to postings. Reaching them takes credibility, discretion, and the experience to frame an opportunity in terms that matter to them and their clients. That is what earns a serious conversation.
We conduct searches for our client banks on a retained basis and have successfully filled roles across the commercial banking spectrum, from C&I and CRE Relationship Managers to Business Development Officers, deposit-focused bankers, and full team lift-outs, up through Market President, Chief Lending Officer, and Head of Commercial Banking, among many others.
Our Search Process
Search Scenarios
A few anonymized examples of what proven bankers and teams have done for the institutions we placed them with.
Boosting Core Deposits & NIM
We placed multiple deposit acquisition groups for a regional bank's private banking division, driving substantial first-year core deposit growth with roughly 75% of new deposits in DDA balances, and positioning the bank for continued low-cost growth and improved net interest margin.
C&I Growth
We placed a three-person team for a community bank rebalancing away from a heavy investment-CRE and multifamily concentration toward C&I and owner-occupied CRE. About a year later, the team had beaten its first-year origination goal and more than doubled its low-cost deposit target, with a pipeline pointing higher for year two.
Market Leadership Succession
We placed a highly regarded team leader as Market President for a regional bank, succeeding a retiring long-tenured executive, and bringing two decades of experience leading commercial lending teams at money center and super regional banks. Under his leadership the team improved loan growth, credit quality, and retention, and he later recruited the top two producers from his prior institution.
Launching a New Market Presence
We executed a team lift-out from a money center bank for a regional client, launching a loan production office in a new market. The long-tenured, five-person Middle Market team and its Regional Executive joined our client, and by the two-year mark had surpassed the goals of its three-year business plan in both loans and deposits.
Expanding Non-Interest Income
We placed an SBA 7(a) manager who spearheaded the launch of a community bank's SBA division, driving a substantial increase in non-interest income within nine months through secondary-market sales of guaranteed loan portions. Within a year we added two experienced BDOs to grow 7(a) volume.
Growing Business Operating Accounts
We placed a deposit-focused business banking leader at a family-owned community bank, producing a 20% increase in local business accounts within a year while deepening the bank's community relationships.
Market Intelligence
293 metro-scale markets and all 3,144 counties, ranked by economic output, population, deposits, and deposit concentration. Built from FDIC, BEA, and Census data for banks weighing a market and for the bankers who would build there.
Explore Market IntelligenceWe work two ways: conducting searches for banks with an immediate need, and connecting established bankers who are open to strategic conversations with vetted institutions.
For Bankers
Many of the bankers we speak with aren't actively looking. They are successful where they are, but open to exploring whether the right bank, leadership team, credit culture, and compensation could create a better long-term opportunity. Our role isn't simply to present openings: we help you assess whether a move makes sense for you and your clients. Your identity is never shared without your permission.
What We Help You Evaluate
How We Vet the Banks We Represent
A move is only as sound as the institution behind it. We maintain current call report data on every bank in the U.S., so every conversation is grounded in the bank's real condition, including the compelling opportunities at banks actively strengthening their position through capital, strategy, or treasury capability.
Metrics We Track
“Knowing our clients and candidates, and serving their needs, is absolutely everything at The Executive Recruiter Group.”
Chad Hayworth, Founder & Managing Director
About the Firm
The Executive Recruiter Group, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is a nationwide executive search firm with a long track record of serving community and regional banks and the established commercial bankers who drive their growth. We primarily work with banks holding between $500 million and $50 billion in assets, combining direct market outreach, long-term relationship development, and practical industry knowledge to help banks and bankers evaluate opportunities with clarity.
About the Founder
The Executive Recruiter Group was founded by Chad Hayworth, who brings more than 25 years of executive recruiting experience to his work. His approach is built on a simple premise: a commercial banker's next move deserves the same rigor a bank applies to its own balance sheet. He studies the institution as closely as he seeks to understand the banker, helping banks recruit proven talent and helping established bankers weigh opportunities with candor and clear-eyed judgment.
Recommendations from commercial bankers he has served are available on LinkedIn.
Our Values
We never oversell a candidate, push a banker toward a move that doesn't serve them, or manufacture urgency on either side.
We weigh credit culture, leadership, client portability, deposit strength, compensation, and timing before a conversation reaches either side.
We manage the search closely from first call through offer, resignation, and start date, with direct accountability throughout.
We measure our work by the fit and performance of the bankers we place, not by activity for its own sake.
Confidentiality isn't a feature of our process; it is the process. We protect identity, strategy, and every relationship involved.
We build long-term relationships by speaking candidly, even when the honest answer isn't the easy one.
Get in Touch
Whether you represent a bank seeking to recruit proven bankers, or are considering the right next move as an established commercial banker, market leader, or production team, we welcome the opportunity to speak with you.