Chris Zych

Chief Financial Officer
Southern First

What are you most looking forward to in your new position?

I look forward to aggregating all my professional and educational experiences to help Southern First reach its highest performance targets. I enjoy bringing teams and projects together, developing specific goals, executing them, and measuring successes together. I cannot think of a better team to have this opportunity with. Great people, great culture, great fit.

What is the biggest challenge facing your industry right now?

An obvious answer might be the ever-changing economic conditions we all face. Right now, that is trade, tariffs, and interest rates. Tomorrow, it may be something else. Over the long span of my career, there are always market, regulatory and other factors impacting banks that we must navigate. With that said, I believe that the biggest challenge for banks is how to attract and retain core deposits. It is the key to increasing and maintaining long-term client relationships. To do so, I believe one of the things we must do is effectively compete against non-banks in the business payments space by providing tools that facilitate both internal expense management and accounting systems, as well as traditional banking and other services we can provide. We need to be able to efficiently move money from place to place with as little friction as possible.

What was your first job, and what did you learn from it?

My first professional job was as an internal auditor for a big bank. My team focused on reviewing various capital markets, businesses, and departments. I realized then that I never wanted to leave Corporate Finance, and it made me more eager to advance and deepen my knowledge and experience.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever heard?

It’s both fact and advice. Options are more valuable unexercised than they are exercised, and their value is highly and positively influenced by volatility, that is, changes in the environment. Keep your options open as long as you can, and you will eventually find a time to take the right action.

What is something most people would be surprised to know about you?

I am a native New Englander who moved to the Carolinas shortly after graduating college to continue my, then, early career in banking. At the time, I thought it could be a short-term thing. After 30 great years, I’m pretty sure it is not. What a great journey it has been. I am fortunate to have landed right here.