Erik Harwood

Biography

Erik D. Harwood began his banking career in 2002, with a community bank located in the Florida Panhandle. Mr. Harwood worked his way up from Teller to Branch Manager on the retail side before transitioning to the lending arena. For the past nine years, he has focused primarily on commercial underwriting, credit quality, and lending compliance. Prior to joining Ceto and Associates, Mr. Harwood served as Vice President for a community bank, supervising the underwriting and loan operations functions. His previous experience includes consulting work with banks and credit unions, lending and credit analysis, and branch management.

Representative Accomplishments

• While serving as Credit Administrator with a community bank, Mr. Harwood developed and installed a regulatory compliant policy for appraisal administration and ALLL Qualitative Factor analysis. Additionally, he was installed onto the Directors Loan Committee and charged with risk rating oversight for $200 million loan portfolio.

• During his time as a Consultant, Mr. Harwood managed a client base of 22 community banks & credit unions throughout Florida and south Alabama, spending as many as 34 weeks per year on site. This immersion in the industry allowed Mr. Harwood to compile a viable composite of best practices, as well as behaviors to avoid.

• As a Lender, Mr. Harwood managed portfolios of up to $35 million. His expertise includes commercial real estate lending, C & I lending, SBA lending, and portfolio residential lending.  The foundation for Mr. Harwood’s transition to the lending function was his training as a credit analyst.

• While serving as a Branch Manager, Mr. Harwood experienced a merger and was called upon to lead his branch through the transition against daunting goals. During the merger, Mr. Harwood led his $33 million branch with no employee turnover and a plus 13% margin on projected deposit runoff.  After the merger, Mr. Harwood was promoted and charged with retrenchment of the bank’s main office after post-merger deposit runoff decreased total assets by 25%.  Harwood recouped approximately 14% in ten months.

Education

University of West Florida, Pensacola, Florida