First Horizon Bank has tapped Chris George to serve as senior vice president and private client relationship manager. A native of Chattanooga, George comes to First Horizon after serving as a relationship banker and then moving into leadership at Regions Bank. George most recently served as a vice president in wealth management before joining First Horizon.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate is licensed in property, casualty and life insurance. He and his family reside in Soddy Daisy. He supports St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the American Cancer Society.
CHI appoints Sutton to new roles
Michael Sutton is the new president of CHI Medical Group and Mountain Management Services. His appointment follows the retirement of Glyn Hughes.
Sutton has 30 years of health care leadership experience, having worked his way up the finance ladder at CHI Memorial with positions spanning from manager of cost and reimbursement to market vice president of finance.
Before his leadership roles at CHI Memorial, Sutton served as director of reimbursement for Health Corp of Tennessee and senior auditor for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
During Sutton’s 21-year tenure at CHI Memorial, his notable achievements included serving as an executive leader on the master facility project, playing a key role in navigating the organization through the Great Recession and the COVID pandemic, collaborating with payors to achieve increases in reimbursement rates and leading several performance improvements.
Sutton holds an MBA, an accounting degree from UTC and a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and Healthcare Financial Management Association.
Pinnacle adds three bankers
Pinnacle has attracted three more seasoned financial services professionals to its team in Chattanooga.
Scott Peek and Josh Ditmer have joined Pinnacle as financial advisers in the firm’s client advisory group, which serves business and commercial clients.
Jim Thurman has brought his expertise to Pinnacle as a treasury management adviser. All three are based at Pinnacle’s office at 801 Broad Street
Peek had been with Regions Bank for 20 years. For the past 15 years, he served as a commercial banking relationship manager. He also has experience in credit underwriting and branch office management.
Peek earned an MBA from UTC and a bachelor’s degree in finance from UTK. He holds a Certified Treasury Professional designation from the Association for Financial Professionals.
Ditmer worked for Regions Bank, where he concentrated on serving commercial clients and high net worth individuals, for 19 years. He also has experience in branch office management and telebanking.
Ditmer is a certified wealth strategist and was the top commercial lending wealth adviser for Regions in 2021.
Thurman had been with Regions Bank, where he most recently served as treasury management sales officer, for seven years. Before his tenure at Regions, he worked for U.S. Xpress Enterprises as senior treasury analyst and cash manager.
Thurman is a graduate of Wofford College and earned an MBA from UTC. He holds a Certified Treasury Professional designation from the Association for Financial Professionals.