A longtime area banking executive has accepted a new role with a young community bank.
 
Randy Tomsic, former senior vice president and Wilmington market president for Wells Fargo, is now regional president, Eastern North Carolina, for Raleigh-based Dogwood State Bank. He stepped into his new position Jan. 4.
 
“It’s refreshing to have a leader with Randy’s experience in the market,” Dogwood CEO Steve Jones said Monday, adding that the bank is excited to combine Tomsic’s knowledge of the region with Wilmington Market Executive Mark Johnson’s local leadership.
 
Dogwood officials created the regional president position with Tomsic in mind, Jones said, explaining that there are counterparts in the bank’s Triangle region and Charlotte region. Tomsic will be based in Wilmington but serve Dogwood’s Eastern North Carolina markets in Greenville and Morehead City as well.
 
“Our goal, with Steve’s help and that of the executive leadership team, is to continue to grow and build out our market share in Eastern North Carolina,” Tomsic said Monday.
 
Tomsic knows the region – and the local business community – well. During his 32-year commercial banking career with Wachovia Bank and its successor Wells Fargo, he led the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce as well as United Way of the Cape Fear Area and served on the Executive Advisory Board for the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Cameron School of Business. He continues to serve on the Cape Fear Future board and UNCW’s Board of Visitors.
 
Increasing Dogwood’s profile and market share in the region will involve the strategic use of technology while maintaining the high-touch, end-market customer service the bank prides itself on, Tomsic said.
 
“Certainly the environment we’re in now has really accelerated the use of technology,” he added, noting that the bank is using Zoom to meet with clients, which complements and enhances Dogwood’s “high-touch, in-market customer service. It allows us to be more efficient and touch more organizations to help them with their needs.”
 
Johnson said that Dogwood’s Wilmington branch is seeing more traffic, typically measured by teller transactions.
 
“If you look at the broad scope from national data, in-branch transactions are decreasing. We may be bucking the trend a little bit, and we’re adding new business [customers] every day.”
 
According to the most recent FDIC market deposit data, Dogwood State Bank ranks 17th in the Wilmington market, with .20% of market share.
 
“We have a lot of great talent in this organization: seasoned bankers and professionals,” Tomsic said. “Our goal is to go out and add to that. When I began having conversations with Steve, Mark and others in the organization, I was most impressed with Dogwood’s culture of care. Our employees care about each other, their success, their customers and their communities.
 
“Our executive leadership team is very local and often out in the markets with us,” he continued. “They know our customers and that enables us to move quickly to address customer requests and needs. Our speed to market is what we think of as an advantage.”