Live Oak Bancshares shuffled its leadership on Tuesday, with veteran executive Neil Underwood stepping down as president of the Wilmington-based bank holding company.
William Losch III, who has served as both president of Live Oak Bank and CFO, will add the additional role of president of Live Oak Bancshares.
Losch will be succeeded as CFO by Walter Phifer, effective Jan. 1. Phifer has been treasurer since 2019.
Underwood has been a key colleague of Live Oak CEO James “Chip” Mahan as the veteran banker has built the digital-oriented company into a leading small business lender. Live Oak described Underwood’s departure as a “natural evolution” of his position as general partner and co-founder of Canapi Ventures, a venture capital firm started by Mahan that backs promising fintech companies.
“I am excited to continue serving Live Oak as a director, while also expanding my focus at Canapi Ventures,” Underwood said in a release. “This is an organic extension of my involvement in two incredible organizations whose missions closely align as they aim to create meaningful solutions for the financial services industry of the future.”
While at the bank, he 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.
Live Oak had assets of $10.95 billion in assets as of Sept. 30.
The company’s stock rose $3.30, or 11% to closed Tuesday at $33.25.
