Meghan Federico

After 13 years in the business, Meghan Federico was recently named vice president of business banking for Regents Bank. Federico works in the bank’s Carlsbad office which opened in June 2006, but she’s been with Regents since it opened in September of 2001. Her vita includes stints with San Diego National Bank and Scripps Bank.

“I started out of high school and stuck with it,” says Federico. “I started at a community bank in Santa Clarita, and centralized an operations department, where I received the opportunity to learn operations, ‘the back end of the business.’”

At Regents, Federico was promoted from assistant vice president, and business development officer, “because of my experience in operations, and because of the model of our bank, I help bring in business and get to maintain the relationships I’ve developed,” she says.

Like many of her colleagues, Federico is monitoring the current volatility in the mortgage markets and its effect on the local lending environment. “It has affected some of our clients, but we’re not seeing any direct hit, and loan demand is still strong,” she says. “I read the newspaper and watch ‘Mad Money with Jim Cramer,’ but I haven’t seen a direct relationship; it’s more of a hype.”

Federico says she’s looking forward to growing the bank’s North County portfolio. “North County has its own energy, and with the development of the Palomar Airport Business Park, there’s a lot of buzz for business,” she explains. “We opened here because we had a few clients located here already, and we’ve picked up some more that were waiting for us to open.” In the next three to five years, Federico says she wants to use her North County position to become “a bigger player in the San Diego banking market.”

One way Federico is getting into the swing of North County is by taking up golf. “It’s a great business development tool,” she says. “I’ve had clients I’ve been calling on and I couldn’t score a time to meet, but get a tee time and all of a sudden you’re spending five hours with them on the course.”