CEO to leave group in 2018, former chairman to succeed him

Fine (left) and Romero Rainey

Camden Fine, the longtime CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America, will retire next year as part of a transition plan that will end with the association's former executive committee chairman taking his place.

Fine will step down as leader of the $41 million-revenue ICBA in May 2018, the association announced May 2. Rebeca Romero Rainey, a New Mexico bank executive who spent a year as the group's chair, will succeed him.

Fine has led ICBA since 2003. Originally a community banker from Missouri, he chartered and organized Midwest Independent Bank of Jefferson City, Mo. and was its president and CEO for nearly 20 years.

The association credits his leadership with helping prevent Wal-Mart from receiving a bank charter, raising the limit on FDIC insurance to $250,000, making FDIC insurance assessments more equitable for community banks, and ensuring that community bankers have a seat at the table in Washington, D.C.

In a statement on his departure, the CEO emphasized that he will remain "fully engaged" at the association as he heads into retirement.

Romero Rainey currently is chair and CEO of Centinel Bank of Taos, N.M. The bank was founded by her grandfather in 1969, a decade after he had been turned down for a $50 dollar loan by another bank because of his Hispanic heritage. Romero Rainey began work at the bank as a part-time teller in her teens and later became president of the institution in 1999 at age 22.

Romero Rainey was appointed ICBA's executive committee chairman in 2016. She also is past president and current board member of the Independent Community Bankers Association of New Mexico, and director and co-founder of the Bridges Project for Education, a nonprofit focused on helping first-generation college students.

She has a bachelor's degree in political science from Wellesley College in Massachusetts.