Board of Directors
Board of Directors
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James S. (Chip) Mahan III
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Lee Williams III
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Tonya Bradford
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Bill Cameron
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David G. Lucht
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Patrick McHenry
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Milt Petty
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Neil Underwood
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Yousef Valine
James S. (Chip) Mahan III
Chip Mahan has built his career revolutionizing the banking industry. He founded and currently serves as CEO and Chairman of Live Oak Bancshares, headquartered in Wilmington, NC. Its commercial banking subsidiary, Live Oak Bank, specializes in providing lending and deposit services to small businesses nationwide and is the nation’s leading SBA lender.
Chip is also a managing partner and co-founder of Canapi Ventures, a series of funds focused on providing venture capital to new and emerging financial technology companies. He currently serves on several fintech and financial services boards including Apiture, a joint venture between Live Oak and Fiserv, which focuses on creating next-gen technology for financial institutions; cloud-based cyber security firm DefenseStorm; and the American Bankers Association. He is also a co-founder of nCino, a cloud-based banking software built on the Salesforce platform; Finxact, the cloud-native core-as-a-service platform founded in part by Mahan and other industry pioneers; and Payrailz, a digital payment company.
Prior to Live Oak, Chip was the CEO and chairman of S1 Corporation and founder of Security First Network Bank, the world’s first internet bank. Under his leadership, S1 Corporation grew to become a $234 million software and services provider in only six years, averaging more than 200 percent growth year over year. At its peak, S1 had a market capitalization of over $6 billion. During his term as CEO, Chip was ranked as one of the 10 Most Influential Personalities in Financial Services by FutureBanker magazine.
Prior to founding Security First Network Bank and S1 Corporation, Chip launched Cardinal Bancshares, where he served as Chairman and CEO. He built Cardinal into an institution with approximately $675 million in total assets and took the company public in 1992. Before launching Cardinal, Chip spent several years with Citizens Union National Bank & Trust Co., serving as President, Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman and becoming Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in 1984. In 1986, he formed an investment group that purchased Citizens Union and subsequently sold it to BankOne Corp. of Columbus, Ohio.
Chip began his career in 1973 at Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. in Winston-Salem, NC, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.
Lee Williams III
Lee Williams is the vice chairman of the company and one of the original founders of the bank. Prior to starting Live Oak Bank, Lee spent 19 years in corporate banking at Wachovia and worked for 14 years at Vine Street Financial doing SBA lending. Lee began his banking career in 1973 at Wachovia, where he worked with Wachovia Services, Inc, then Wachovia Regional Corporate Lending, calling on and lending to mid-market regional companies. In 1987, he relocated to Wilmington, NC, where he managed the Wachovia Corporate Lending group for the three-county area of southeastern North Carolina. In 1992, he re-joined Chip Mahan at Cardinal Bancshares as they began Vine Street Financial, a niche SBA lending division, of Vine Street Trust Company. Lee held several positions within this group including president and senior SBA lender. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Vine Street Financial became a division of BB&T, where Lee served as a senior SBA lender, resigning in May of 2007 to found Live Oak Bank. Lee graduated in 1973 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. He currently serves on the Elon University Board of Trustees and the New Hanover County Airport Authority board, as well as several private company boards, as managing member. In addition, he has served in the capacity of president and treasurer on numerous charitable and nonprofit organizations in Wilmington and elsewhere in North Carolina.
Tonya Bradford
Dr. Tonya Bradford currently serves as an associate professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California at Irvine. She publishes and teaches marketing management and brand strategy at the graduate and undergraduate level and studies consumer rituals. Prior to her academic career at UCI, Bradford spent 17 years in domestic and international markets including a position as general manager at S1 Corporation in Atlanta; principal at Gemini Consulting (now Cap Gemini) in the US, UK, Belgium and South Africa; Allstate Insurance; and Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. Bradford received a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from Northwestern University and an MBA and PhD in Marketing from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
Bill Cameron
Bill Cameron is a co-founder and President of Cameron Management, Inc., where he provides hands-on leadership to the firm’s daily operations and long-term planning. His extensive experience includes real estate development and executive leadership. Cameron was a founding director of Port City Capital Bank and Chief Operating Officer of Atlantic Telecasting Corporation. Furthermore, Cameron has provided significant contributions to the cultural and economic development of the Wilmington, North Carolina area.
David G. Lucht
David Lucht is a founding member of the Live Oak Bank team and most recently served as executive vice president of credit before retiring in December 2020. He joined Live Oak in 2007 and helped design the bank’s approach to identifying and managing credit risk. Additionally, Lucht helped shape the corporate culture of the company since its inception and his leadership will continue to drive the company’s trajectory. Prior to his career at Live Oak, Lucht held executive positions at financial institutions including chief credit officer, executive vice president and director at First Merit Bank in Akron, OH, where he was responsible for leading a turnaround in the credit culture and performance of the $10.5 billion bank. Prior to First Merit, Lucht served as senior credit officer of National City Bank. Lucht received a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from Miami University in Ohio and his MBA from Kent State University.
Patrick McHenry
Mr. McHenry serves as an advisor on public policy, financial services, fintech, and artificial intelligence matters, in addition to serving as a distinguished fellow at Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. He spent 20 years in Congress and is the former Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and U.S. Representative for North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District.
During his time leading the committee, Mr. McHenry drove a robust legislative agenda focused on cryptocurrency, capital formation, AI, fintech, data privacy, and corporate governance issues, among other topics. In addition to his role as Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. McHenry previously served in House Republican leadership as the Chief Deputy Whip and also served as Speaker Pro Tempore of the House in October of 2023. He is a native of Gastonia, NC and a graduate of Belmont Abbey College.
Milt Petty
Milt Petty is a director at Live Oak Bank and serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee. He is a 1973 graduate of the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. He is a Certified Public Accountant and worked with a CPA firm in Burlington, NC from 1972 – 1977. In 1977 he was employed by Carolina Hosiery Mills, Inc., a family owned corporation that manufactures hosiery and develops and leases commercial real estate. He is Chief Financial Officer of Carolina Hosiery Mills, Inc. He is a director of Trust Company of the South in Burlington, NC and he is Treasurer of The Educational Foundation, Inc. in Chapel Hill, NC.
Neil Underwood
Neil Underwood has served as a member of the board of directors since 2008, and previously served as president until November 2023. Underwood is a general partner and co-founder of Canapi Ventures, a series of funds focused on providing venture capital to new and emerging financial technology companies. Prior to joining Live Oak, Underwood served as general manager of S1 Corporation, where he was responsible for the S1 Enterprise division. While at Live Oak, Underwood co-founded nCino, a cloud-based bank operating system now serving over 1,000 financial institutions globally. Through the venture arm of Live Oak, Underwood helped incubate companies focused on digital bank transformation, including Finxact, Payrailz, DefenseStorm and Greenlight. In 2017, he cofounded Apiture, a joint venture between Live Oak and First Data, serving as a cloud-native omni-channel onboarding and servicing platform. Underwood currently serves on the boards of Live Oak, Greenlight, ModernFI, Island, Proof (formerly Notarize), Asset Class, Posh and Anatomy. He previously served on the boards of nCino, Apiture, DefenseStorm, Payrailz, Finxact and Blend. A native of Miami, FL, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Yousef Valine
Yousef has more than 37 years of broad experience in financial services, including 24 years at Wachovia and 13 years as First Horizon Corporation. His leadership and expertise span credit, market and operational risk management, regulatory relations, management and board governance, Community Reinvestment and Bank Secrecy Acts, operations, information technology, treasury services, finance and mergers and acquisitions. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer, Chief Risk Officer, and Merger Executive at First Horizon. Prior to joining First Horizon, Yousef held progressively executive level roles at Wachovia, the fourth largest financial institution in the United States at the time, including Chief Operating Officer of the Risk Management Division as well as the Head of Institutional Risk Group. Yousef graduated from Georgia State University and has completed the Risk Management Association’s Advance Risk Management program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Wachovia’s Executive Management programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. He is an award-winning author and has served as a visiting lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.