City National Bank Celebrates a Decade of Success in Georgia

City National’s local team has built a reputation for its unparalleled service to Atlanta’s businesses, entrepreneurs, high-net-worth individuals and their families, and the entertainment community.

City National Bank is celebrating its 10th anniversary in Georgia. In just a short decade, the bank has grown to one of the community’s go-to financial providers, and has expanded from just one local banker to nearly 30 colleagues in the region.

City National opened its first Atlanta office 10 years ago in Buckhead, to serve the area’s growing music and entertainment industry. David Innes, senior vice president and team leader of Entertainment Banking in Atlanta, joined the bank to lead the move into Georgia. He had served as an entertainment banker in Atlanta since 1997 and had worked in the music industry at large for many years. City National was known on the coasts — especially in its home city of Los Angeles, where it had established a reputation for its legacy of serving the entertainment industry — but not as well known in Georgia. Since that time, Innes and his team of entertainment experts have cemented the bank’s reputation as a critical provider in Georgia of financial services to the local music industry and thriving film and television industry.

In the decade that’s followed, City National has expanded to other industries as well. The bank hired Sam Donley, senior vice president and business banking manager, in 2018 to lead its first local team of business bankers providing custom financial solutions to commercial and industrial firms. City National has also added personal bankers to support the broader community and additional business bankers who specialize in small businesses, commercial entities and larger corporate entities across several industries. In fact, the bank added April Chan in 2021 as National Corporate Banking group head and managing director leading its Diversified Industrials & Services banking in the region. City National also expanded its specialized Food and Beverage team into Atlanta in 2021 with the addition of Eric Viergutz, managing director, and is expanding its Commercial Real Estate Banking and Commercial Banking teams into Atlanta as well to serve Georgia even better.

In 2020, when many banks were closing branches across the country in a trend that was only accelerated by the pandemic, City National doubled down on its commitment and opened its second Atlanta location, a 4,500-square-foot bank branch in Buckhead. The new branch, led by vice president and branch manager Antwan Floyd, has helped City National better provide financial solutions to commercial and industrial firms in the area, as well as the entrepreneurs and professionals growing the state’s burgeoning technology and corporate industries.

“The entertainment team here at City National has been thrilled to welcome and collaborate with our personal and business banking colleagues as we have expanded in Atlanta,” said Martha Henderson, executive vice president and head of the Entertainment Banking division at City National. “City National has a long history of providing highly tailored financial advice and personal service to our clients, and it has been incredibly rewarding to serve and be a part of this dynamic community over the past 10 years.”

“A decade ago, I felt that the Atlanta entertainment community needed a financial firm with real, long-standing entertainment and music industry expertise,” said Innes. “I’m grateful that Martha Henderson agreed to work with me to open City National’s first office in Atlanta, and I’m incredibly proud of the way we’ve been able to support the community and the careers of artists and business managers in the time since.”

“City National is deeply committed to this community,” said Floyd. “That’s one of the things I was most drawn to when I joined the bank two years ago. This is a company that truly cares about its clients and helping them succeed. I can’t wait to see what the next decade brings for us in Georgia.”

“Georgia has welcomed City National’s highly personalized service and deep expertise since the bank first laid down roots here in 2011,” said Donley. “Even as we’ve expanded, we’ve never lost sight of what makes City National a different kind of bank. We’re as focused as ever on providing that same level of service to help businesses and individuals plan for the future and meet their financial goals.”

For nearly 70 years, City National has been committed to supporting all the communities where its colleagues and clients live and work. The bank’s team in Atlanta has made it a top priority to support its clients and communities, especially throughout the pandemic when they needed it most:

• When the Small Business Administration launched its Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in April 2020, the City National team worked around the clock to secure PPP loans for small and medium-sized businesses and nonprofit organizations that are the backbone of our economy — saving thousands of jobs and keeping many companies in business. No City National client in Atlanta who wanted or needed PPP funds was left behind in the process.
  
  
• Randie Brooks, vice president and relationship manager with City National’s Entertainment Banking team, is a board member and the vice president of development for Women In Film & Television in Atlanta (WIFTA). WIFTA collaborated with the WIF (in Los Angeles), and NYWIF (New York Women In Film) chapters to launch the “Hire Her Back” campaign and fund in 2020, which called upon entertainment industry employers to hire women and people of color as the industry began to shift back into production mode. In light of this and Brooks’ many other contributions to the local community, she was recognized by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2021 as a Corporate Citizen of the Year.
  
  
• Brooks worked closely with another member of City National’s Entertainment Banking team in Atlanta, Joshua Harris, senior vice president and relationship manager, to join with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Invest Atlanta, and the Mayor’s Office of Film and Entertainment in 2020 to launch the Creative Industries Relief Grant Pdrogram (creATL), a grant program developed to help gig economy workers adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program provided $1,000 grants to gig workers in the entertainment industry to alleviate economic hardship caused by project cancellations and pandemic-related disruptions. The creATL fund was initially capitalized by donations from City National, the program’s collaborators and other local leaders — and more than $500,000 was ultimately raised to support Atlanta’s creative community.
  
  
• Floyd serves on the board of directors for Positive Growth, Inc., a nonprofit mental health service agency in Georgia that is dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth, adults and families during difficult life transitions by providing comprehensive residential and community-based treatment services.
  
  
• Donley and City National’s Business Banking team are a multi-year sponsor of Path United, an organization that provides underprivileged children with after-school programs and mentoring.