Vice President of Strategic Planning and Senior Mergers and Acquisitions Specialist. During the 1990s, she was an investment banker focused on bank mergers and acquisitions as a Vice President for BEI Golembe, Senior Vice President for The Secura Group, and Managing Director for Professional Bank Services. Anita was also formerly President, CEO, and board member of the for-profit subsidiary of America’s Community Bankers, a large national banking trade association. Anita currently serves as President of A.G. Newcomb & Co., a strategic consulting firm to the banking industry that she founded in 1999. Her firm has built a national reputation in providing financial and strategic advisory services to some of the country’s most successful regional and community banks. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond-Baltimore Branch (2010-present) and was recently appointed to the Advisory Board of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Institute for Director Education. She is also a faculty member of the Barret Graduate School of Banking in Memphis, Tenn. In addition to the Auburn University honors diploma she earned in 1976 with a BSBA in Accounting, Anita subsequently received an MBA in Finance with Distinction from the University of Houston. Anita has continued to support Auburn University through her participation on the Advisory Board of the College of Business for the past 15 years and is a former Chairman. In 2008, she was honored as one of 40 distinguished Auburn College of Business alumni. In 2010, she was honored with the 2010 Distinguished Alumna Award by St. Pius X Catholic High School in Atlanta, Ga. She is a member of the Women’s Leadership Institute Board of Auburn University. She is a CPA (inactive) and a member of the AICPA. Anita resides in Columbia, Md. Her daughter, Rachel, graduated from Auburn University with a BSBA in Accounting in 2010 and a MAc in 2011 and currently works for Deloitte in Houston. Anita’s late father and sister also graduated from Auburn. The School of Accountancy is especially grateful for Anita’s past and continued support of Auburn University. She represents our profession, Auburn University, and the School of Accountancy in the most positive manner, and we are very proud to name her our 2013 Outstanding Alumna.
Due to certain macro factors that are occurring and will continue over the coming years, there will be one-third fewer banks in the U.S. in 10 years. Why? Because Anita Newcomb said so. Newcomb, President of A.G. Newcomb & Co., a strategic consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and Board Member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond-Baltimore Branch, is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the banking industry. Regarded by many as an expert on the banking industry, Newcomb’s thoughts on the financial system have been widely circulated by a variety of national publications and television networks. Newcomb’s story is one of a young female accountant entering a male-dominated industry. She became the first woman - a pioneer - to “break the ceiling” of the executive floor when she was promoted to manager of investor relations for the Pennzoil Company in the early 1980s and continued to climb to new heights. During her visit to Auburn in March, Newcomb shared her beliefs on the financial markets, regulations, and the banking industry as a whole. “Banks have a challenging future ahead with the continued low economic growth environment and resulting low loan demand and anemic operating revenue, higher costs of doing business associated with increased regulations and advanced technology and delivery, and the need for higher levels of regulatory capital. These stresses to banks’ business models will create an environment of increasing consolidation of banks over the next 10 years.” How did you get involved with or develop an expertise in the banking industry?
Pictured left to right are Emma Gentle, Anita’s mother; Anita; Al Gentle, Sr., Anita’s late father; Rachel Newcomb, Anita’s daughter; and Al Gentle, Jr., Anita’s brother. 4
The SOA Connection
Fall 2013
It really was by happenstance. I started my career with one of the Big Eight firms, Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co., in Birmingham, Ala., and was only there for a very short time. After leaving