Blake Swafford is a second-generation community banker who grew up steeped in the lingo and acronyms that make up the language of the business.
His father, Sam Swafford, was a longtime president at SimplyBank (under its former name, First Bank of Tennessee) and a former mayor of Dayton.
But as senior innovation officer for the $361 million-asset bank based in Dayton, the younger Swafford is focused more on the future and building new technologies than he is on dwelling on the past and keeping all of the banking practices of his father’s generation.
“We’ve got to be more agile,” Swafford told the Independent Banker, the trade publication for the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA).
The ICBA recently selected Swafford as one of its 40 under 40 emerging community bankers from across the country in 2020. Nominated by the bank’s top leadership for the nationwide honor, Swafford said it’s a badge of honor for himself and the teams he works alongside and supports.