Jim "JV" Vaughn, who has headed one of Chattanooga's biggest banks for nearly 11 years, is stepping down next week as the Chattanooga market president for Truist Bank.
After working in the banking industry for 46 years with Commerce Union, Sovran, C&S, Bank of America, Regions, SunTrust and now Truist Bank, Vaughn said he will retire at the end of the year.
"I'm looking forward to spending more time with my family and the next phase of life's journey," the 69-year-old banker said in a telephone interview.
Johnny Moore, a senior vice president for Truist who heads the bank's Tennessee operations, said a search has begun both internally and externally for a successor to Vaughn to serve as Truist's Chattanooga market president.
In the interim, the East Tennessee market president for Truist, Harry Gross Jr., will oversee the bank's Chattanooga operations, Moore said.
"Being a community-based bank, we want people in the market who know our clients and our clients and prospects know them," Moore said in a video interview. "We are different from a lot of banks because we let our local people deal with and take care of our local clients and we're always striving to serve the financial needs of our customers."
Moore said Vaughn, who was recruited to the former SunTrust from Regions Bank in 2013, "is a first-class act" who helped lead the staff of SunTrust and later Truist through the merger and name change, maintaining the bank's service quality and leading market share.
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Truist, which was created in 2019 when SunTrust merged with BB&T, is the second biggest bank in Chattanooga with 16 Chattanooga branch offices and local deposits of more than $2.3 billion. Only First Horizon Bank is bigger in the Chattanooga market, where 29 commercial banks now operate full-service banks and a couple of other banks operate loan offices.
Vaughn first came to Chattanooga in 1988 after serving as an agricultural lender in Middle Tennessee for Commerce Union Bank, which later was acquired by Sovran, C&S and ultimately Bank of America. Vaughn was chair of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce two years ago and has been a key fundraiser and community leader for a number of Chattanooga organizations.
As the chamber chair, Vaughn helped lead the group's most ambitious fundraising effort for economic development — the $15 million Chattanooga Climbs campaign to support the chamber's economic development efforts over five years. Vaughn also has helped raise more than $500,000 for the Cherokee Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and worked on record-setting capital campaigns for the Chattanooga Urban League, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Engineering and the United Way of Greater Chattanooga, among others.
In 2022, Vaughn was recognized as Chattanooga Manager of the Year.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.