Bear State Financial Inc. of Little Rock, the holding company for Bear State Bank, announced Wednesday that it had promoted James M. Machen and Sherri Billings within the bank.
Machen, senior executive vice president and CFO, is now president of Bear State Bank. Billings, executive vice president and chief accounting officer, is now senior executive vice president, CFO and chief accounting officer of Bear State Financial and Bear State Bank.
The changed were effective on April 20.
Mark McFatridge remains president and CEO of Bear State Financial and CEO of Bear State Bank.
Machen has been the Bear State since 2011; Billings has been with the company, formerly First Federal Bank, since 1979, each in various leadership roles.
"This announcement highlights one of Bear State's strongest attributes – the depth of our leadership team – which allows us to promote from within," McFatridge said in a news release. "Both Matt and Sherri have played pivotal roles in the successful transformation of the legacy First Federal Bank into Bear State Bank as we know it today."
Last week, the publicly traded company announced first-quarter earnings of $3.3 million, up from $2.3 million the first quarter of 2015.