With an illustrious career charting the course of major financial institutions, Priya Jaiswal has a unique vantage point on the seismic shifts in the banking industry. Today, she unpacks the recent blockbuster news of former Iberiabank CEO Daryl Byrd’s return to the Louisiana banking scene. We’ll explore the reunion of this formidable executive team, their ambitious strategy to inject up to $250 million into M C Bank, and their vision to revive relationship-centric banking in a market they believe is hungry for it. This move signals more than just a failed retirement; it’s a calculated play to build the next great regional bank from a solid, local foundation.
You famously said you “badly failed at retirement.” Walk us through the moment you, Mark Tipton, and Michael Brown decided to get back in the game after your non-competes ended. What specific qualities made M C Bank the right vehicle for this new chapter?
It’s a feeling I think many high-octane executives experience. You build something massive over decades—taking Iberiabank from a billion-dollar entity with 300 people to a southern powerhouse with 3,500—and then you’re supposed to just switch it off. The silence is deafening. I imagine for Byrd, the tennis court just couldn’t replace the boardroom. The decision to re-enter wasn’t a single moment but a growing realization among them that the passion was still there. M C Bank was the perfect target. It wasn’t a fixer-upper; it was a solid, established institution with roughly $480 million in assets, 10 locations, and a dedicated 100-person team. It provided the ideal foundation—big enough to be stable, but small enough to be nimble and shaped by their vision. It was a canvas, not a complete overhaul.
You’re reassembling a team of Iberiabank alums, including your new president and CFO. Can you share an anecdote about your past collaboration and explain how you’ll leverage that existing chemistry to quickly implement your vision for operations and finance at M C Bank?
That pre-existing chemistry is their secret weapon. When you’ve been in the trenches together through over 20 acquisitions and countless market cycles, you develop a kind of unspoken language. You know who excels under pressure, who can charm a reluctant client, and who can find the flaw in a balance sheet from a mile away. I can easily picture a scenario from their past at Iberiabank, facing a complex buyout where Tipton was masterfully handling the client relationships, Brown was meticulously integrating the operational systems without a hitch, and Byrd was steering the whole ship with a clear strategic vision. That synergy means they won’t waste the first year just learning to work together. They can hit the ground running on day one, deploying that capital and implementing their strategy with a speed and efficiency that a newly assembled team could never match.
With plans to invest up to $250 million into a bank with roughly $480 million in assets, can you provide a step-by-step breakdown for deploying that capital? What key metrics will you use to measure success as you work to become a “meaningful regional player?”
Injecting that kind of capital—more than half the bank’s current asset size—is a massive move designed for rapid transformation. The first step will be to significantly bolster the bank’s capital base. This isn’t just for stability; it’s the war chest that fuels everything else. Second, they’ll deploy funds into organic growth, specifically financing the expansion into new markets with three new branches, including that critical first outpost in Uptown New Orleans. Third, you’ll see investment in technology and infrastructure, bringing in their former tech chief to ensure they can scale efficiently. Finally, with a fortified balance sheet, they will be actively looking for acquisition opportunities, which is Byrd’s forte. Success won’t just be about hitting a certain asset number; it will be measured by gaining significant market share in commercial lending, achieving top-tier client satisfaction scores, and establishing the M C Bank brand as the premier relationship bank across the South.
You see an “absence in the market for a relationship-oriented commercial bank.” Describe what this model looks like in practice for a client. How will your new Uptown New Orleans branch, the bank’s first in the city, serve as a flagship for this specific service model?
For a client, this model feels like a return to a bygone era of banking, but with modern capabilities. It means their banker knows their business, their family, and their goals. When a commercial client needs a line of credit for a new project, they’re not submitting forms into a black hole; they’re calling a trusted advisor who already understands their cash flow and can make decisions quickly. It’s proactive, not reactive. The new Uptown New Orleans branch will be the physical embodiment of this philosophy. I envision it being designed less like a traditional bank with teller lines and more like a comfortable, professional consulting space where business owners can have strategic conversations. It will be a statement piece, a flagship demonstrating that they are not just another transactional bank, but a dedicated financial partner for the community.
Current CEO Chris LeBato, also an IberiaBank alum, will become Vice Chair. How do you envision your collaboration working in practice, and what steps will you take to merge your leadership team’s culture with the existing 100-person staff to ensure a smooth transition?
Keeping Chris LeBato in a senior role as Vice Chair is a brilliant strategic move. He acts as the perfect bridge. He not only possesses the IberiaBank DNA that he shares with Byrd’s incoming team, but he also has invaluable, on-the-ground leadership experience at M C Bank since 2021. The collaboration will likely see Byrd’s team setting the grand, strategic vision for growth and expansion, while LeBato provides the critical operational knowledge and cultural guidance to make it a reality. To ensure a smooth transition for the 100-person staff, the key will be communication and inclusion. They need to show that this is an evolution, not an erasure of the bank’s history. By retaining the entire workforce and the bank’s name, they’re signaling respect for what’s already been built. The goal will be to merge the ambitious, growth-oriented culture of Iberiabank with the strong community roots of M C Bank.
Drawing on your experience with over 20 buyouts at Iberiabank and this new venture, what is your forecast for the community and regional banking landscape in the South over the next five years?
The trend of consolidation is only going to accelerate. Smaller community banks will find it increasingly difficult to keep up with the regulatory burdens and technology costs required to compete. However, this creates a tremendous opportunity for well-capitalized and well-led players like the revitalized M C Bank. My forecast is that you’ll see a flight to quality, where both clients and smaller banks are drawn to institutions that have both significant financial muscle and a proven, high-touch service model. The giants will get bigger, but a new class of powerful, “meaningful regional players” will emerge by acquiring smaller competitors and winning over business clients who feel ignored by the megabanks. The South’s banking landscape will become more polarized, and groups like Byrd’s are positioning themselves perfectly to dominate that lucrative middle ground.
