Tamara Gurney
President and Chief Executive Officer
Mission Valley Bank
In 1980 Tamara Gurney began her career in Community Banking when she began work at American Pacific State Bank as the Executive Assistant to the President. When American Pacific State Bank was sold (twenty years later) Tamara was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Today she is the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of Mission Valley Bank, a $553 million (December 2022) community-based business bank headquartered in Sun Valley, California.
In 2000, Tamara brought together a group of highly respected community business bankers as well as a number of local area businesspeople to form Mission Valley Bank. After raising slightly more than $6 million in initial capital, together this group opened the doors of Mission Valley Bank in July of 2001. While it wasn’t an easy start – the Bank’s first location was a “triple wide trailer” set-up in the parking lot of the site that today serves as the Bank’s 10,000 square foot headquarters building – it worked. Tamara and her team’s commitment to build a bank that was “more about the client and less about the bank” proved to be exactly what the area needed. Mission Valley Bank reached breakeven after just eleven months of operation and was “black/black” or fully profitable in less than thirty months.
Today Mission Valley Bank’s 2 branches as well as the Bank’s Specialized Lending and Accounts Receivable Divisions, serve more than 3,000 clients.
Tamara has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and is an Honors Graduate of the University of Wisconsin’s School for Bank Administration in Community Bank Management.
Tamara currently serves on of the Board of Directors and / or Advisory Boards for the following organizations:
· Director – California Community Banking Network
· Federal Reserve Bank – Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council
· Past President California Independent Bankers Association
· Director – Pacific Coast Bankers’ Bank
· Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation
· Chairman, College of the Canyons Foundation
· Valley Economic Alliance – Vice Chair
· Past-Founding Chair – Community Foundation of the Valleys
· Southland Sings
· Fernando Awards Board Member