BankingDive Reports on Expectations for Merger between Pinnacle Financial and Synovus

A recent post here at Turner Business explains how the recent Pinnacle Financial-Synovus merger may impact Greater Columbus, Georgia. That post draws heavily from Tyson Begly's column in the latest issue of Columbus & the Valley magazine. A recent report by Caitlin Mullen of BankingDive adds more information about the merger to Begly's column. Mullen's report covers the highlights of an investor conference about the merger that Pinnacle CEO Terry Turner and Synovus CEO Kevin Blair attended. Turner, 70, and Blair, 54, informed conference attendees that they agreed up front that Blair would be CEO of the combined company, and that there would not be any flip-flopping of CEOs in the future, which was the ill-advised practice established by Truist after it was formed by a 2019 merger between BB&T and Sun Trust. Turner and Bradley also decided the merged entity would use Pinnacle’s go-to-market and incentive compensation models, as well as its branding, and the core processing platform Synovus uses. A go-to-market strategy defines the business goals for launching a banking service, and the incentive compensation model motivates the sales team to achieve those goals. Additionally, Mullen reports that the combined entity will also adopt Pinnacle’s more aggressive hiring approach, which employs an entrepreneurial spirit giving local leaders more autonomy to hire. As the CEOs explain, Synovus’ team has not had the same fervor around hiring that Pinnacle has had. In this regard, Blair explained that Rob McCabe, Synovus' Chief Banking Officer, will instill that hiring model across the entire franchise, having it primed and ready to go for 2026. Lastly, Mullen also reports that both Blair and Turner made a point of calling out the cultural alignment between the two banks, while Blair also noted that rebranding will occur in 2027, as executives need time to choose the client-facing technology that the combined bank will deploy.