Shirley Nelson

Chairman and CEO
Summit Bank

Shirley Nelson has used her small town charm and big
city business savvy to create and lead one of the most
consistently highly ranked and praised independent
banks in California. Nelson is a self-made success story.
From the time she left her rural hometown of Celina,
TN, to her professional beginning as a teller at the
National Bank of Alaska in 1964, Nelson's plan was to
one day head her own bank. In 1982, Nelson and a group of investors created Summit Bank, headquartered in Oakland, CA. Her one-on-one approach with her clientele, the special attention she pays to her employees, and the resulting financial success enjoyed by Summit Bank have earned her extensive recognition.

Nelson's philosophy about civic commitment is exemplified by Summit Bank's policy that every senior Summit Bank officer is required to serve on the board of at least one civic organization. She created the Summit Bank Foundation in 1998, which has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to charitable organizations in the East Bay. It provides financial literacy programs and materials to more than 400 primary and secondary student classrooms. The Marjorie Magner Lifetime Achievement Award

Catherine Allen

Founder, Chairman and CEO
The Sante Fe Group

For more than 30 years, Catherine Allen has been
a leader in technology strategy and financial
services and a luminary in business innovation.
Allen has won accolades from industry, govern-
ment, academia, business groups and the press
for her success in fostering innovation, promoting
new technologies, and bringing stakeholders
together to address common challenges.

Allen served as the founding CEO of BITS from its inception in 1997 through her departure in May 2007. Today, she serves as chairman and CEO of The Santa Fe Group, a strategic consulting company based in New Mexico.

A former banker, Allen's leadership as chief executive of BITS led to the creation of best practices in more than 30 areas of financial services risk management, facilitated the industry's transition from paper to electronic payments, and created a trusted forum in which corporate leaders could speak candidly about critical challenges in a non-competitive environment.