Two new members are nominated to join the board of directors at Little Rock's Bank of the Ozarks Inc.
They are Jack Mullen, 66, director of derivatives and market strategy with AgriBank, FCB since November 2004; and Paula Cholmondeley, 68, who most recently served as a private consultant on strategic planning from 2004-09.
Making way for Mullen and Cholmondeley, three directors are set to leave the board: R. L. Qualls, 82, retired president of Baldor Electric Co. of Fort Smith and a director since 1997; Sherece West-Scantlebury, 50, president and CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and a director since 2012; and Tyler Vance, 41, chief operating officer since 2013 and chief banking officer since 2011 and director since 2015.
The change is expected to occur after the Bank of the Ozarks' annual shareholders meeting May 16 at the corporate headquarters in west Little Rock.
The two-for-three switch was put in motion when the board of directors approved reducing its membership from 16 to 15 on Feb. 23.
In its recently released proxy statement Bank of the Ozarks disclosed its three largest shareholders:
- BlackRock Inc. of New York, 7.6 percent worth $270 million.
- The Vanguard Group Inc. of Malvern, Pennsylvania, 6.6 percent worth nearly $235 million.
- George and Linda Gleason of Little Rock, 6.5 percent worth more than $233 million.
Double-digit increases in compensation were the norm among the company's five top executives:
- George Gleason, chairman and CEO, 16.4 percent to more than $5.9 million.
- Dan Thomas, vice chairman and chief lending officer, 31 percent to more than $4 million.
- Greg McKinney, chief financial officer and chief accounting officer, and Tyler Vance, 30 percent to nearly $1.9 million.
- Darrel Russell, chief credit officer, 28 percent to more than $673,000.