US Metro Bank has renewed the term of its current President and CEO, Dong Il Kim, the bank announced at its 2024 annual shareholders meeting on June 26 at its Garden Grove headquarters.
Kim’s term, which was set to expire at the end of October, has been extended by three years, and he will lead the bank through October 31, 2027.
Having served as president since 2013, Kim has been credited with steadily growing the bank. During his tenure, Kim has built US Metro into a bank with more than $1 billion in assets.
Kim has also worked to improve the bank’s profitability, earning it a recent ranking as the 18th top-performing publicly traded bank with under $2 billion of assets by American Banker. With such performance, the Korean-American banking industry had predicted that Kim’s extended term was highly likely, and it proved to be correct.
“Our achievements during my term are the result of all our staff’s hard work,” said Kim, adding, “Thanks to our customers and employees, the bank was able to surpass $1.3 billion in assets in a challenging business environment with high interest rates.”
“We have always emphasized that banking is a people business, and our prioritization on recruiting talented people has paid off in many ways.”
“Over the next three years, our goal is to reach $3 billion in assets and become a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ,” he said, adding, “We are gearing up for a major expansion, including opening a branch in Seattle and increasing our lending offices to 10 by the end of the year.”
The shareholders’ meeting also reelected the Board Chairman Austin Park, Director Faiez Ennabe, Arthur Lee, Stewart Kim, Jeong Wan Koo, Johaan Min You, and Dong Il Kim, as well as ratified the appointment of an independent registered public accounting firm.
BY WONHEE CHO, HOONSIK WOO [cho.wonhee@koreadaily.com]
