Kim D. Saunders is president and CEO of the National Bankers Association (‘NBA”), the premier trade association for the nation’s minority financial institutions (“MDI”). She has served on the NBA’s Board of Directors since 2013 and was appointed its President and CEO in October 2018. She is the second female president and CEO since the NBA’s founding in 1927.

Ms. Saunders is also the founder, president and CEO of the Eads Group, Inc. (“EGI”), a community-bank-focused multidisciplinary consulting firm, which is spearheading the establishment of the MDI Keeper’s Fund, a national CRA-Social Impact MDI Capital Fund and CAMELUS Syndicate, LLC, a complementary MDI focused business collaboration platform. They both have received the NBA’s endorsement and sponsorship. Ms. Saunders leads EGI in its commitment to serve MDIs and Community Development Financial Institutions (“CDFIs”). She has over 32 years of financial services industry experience, including over a decade of working with MDIs.

Ms. Saunders has also been involved in the start-up phase of three de novo banks. Prior to founding EGI, she served as president and CEO of M&F Bancorp and its wholly owned subsidiary, Mechanics & Farmers Bank (“M&F”) from 2007 to 2014, where she led its acquisition of Mutual Community Savings Bank, Inc., SSB and profitably shepherded M&F through the Financial Crisis. Before serving as president and CEO of M&F, Ms. Saunders was president and CEO of Consolidated Bank and Trust Company (“CB&T”) from 2003 to 2007, where she helped guide the company back to profitability for the first time in six years. She was the second female president and CEO in CB&T’s more than century-old history, a distinction she also held at M&F. Ms. Saunders returned CB&T to full regulatory compliance and ushered the Bank’s sale to a majority woman-owned and -managed publicly traded two-bank holding company, the Abigail Adams National Bancorp, Inc. (acquired by Premier Financial Bancorp, Inc. in 2009). Ms. Saunders launched her banking career with The Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City.

For the past year (2018-2019), Ms. Saunders served as a Senior Advisor for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Minbanc Foundation. Her former Board service includes the NC Museum of Art Foundation (Treasurer), NC Chamber of Commerce, Wake Forest Medical Center Board of Visitors, NC Bankers Association, NC Central University’s Board of Trustees and the United Way of the Greater Triangle. She also formerly served on the Independent Community Bankers Association Minority Banks Council (vice chairwoman), the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council, the inaugural Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Community Bank Advisory Council, and the FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Community Banking.

Ms. Saunders has been recognized as one of the Nation’s 75 Most Powerful Women in Business by Black Enterprise Magazine (in 2010) and as one of North Carolina’s exceptional women leaders by both NC Magazine and the Triangle Business Leaders Magazine (in 2009). Ms. Saunders holds a B.S. in Economics (Finance) from the Wharton School and honorary doctorate from Shaw University.