Leadership

Steven Callaway

Chairman of the Board

Steve Callaway is CEO of the Pleasant Hill-based commercial insurance brokerage WestCallawayStotka, Inc. and serves as chairman of the board of Alta Alliance Bank. He has run a commercial insurance firm since 1986 and before that he worked for Arthur Anderson & Co. He is a certified public accountant and chartered property casualty underwriter. Callaway earned a B.B.A.. degree in Accounting from the University of San Diego, where he was a member of the business honors society Beta Gamma Sigma and the accounting honors society Beta Alpha Psi. He graduated winning the Franklin Award, in recognition as the outstanding senior in his class. His community involvement includes Mt. Diablo Regional YMCA, Holy Names University, where he is a trustee, and the Sequoyah Country Club, which he served as President and member of the board from 1998 to 2000.

Arnold Grisham

President & CEO

Arnold Grisham is the organizing founder of Alta Alliance Bank. Grisham has an extensive banking background, spanning nearly 28 years. He spent 18 years at Wells Fargo & Company, rising to Executive Vice President and managing increasingly complex operations. His banking background also includes positions as president, chief operating officer and chief lending officer of Civic Bank of Commerce, where he was also a board member of the bank and the holding company, Civic Bancorp.

Grisham strongly believes in giving back to the community and in 2002, he and his daughter, Kristine, established the "Last Mile Foundation" through a family company. The primary focus of the Foundation is to help students who have already raised 80% to 90% of their college costs, but have exhausted all available sources of funding, to complete their financial needs. To date, the foundation has granted more than 100 scholarships averaging approximately $2,000 each. Grisham has also lectured to employee groups and professional organizations on leadership and mentoring subjects.

In January 2008, Grisham joined the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as a member of the Board of Directors. His other activities include serving as an Advisory Board member of The United Negro College Fund of Northern California, as a member of the Executive Leadership Council in Washington, D.C. and as a Board member of Children's Hospital of Oakland.

Grisham is a graduate of DePaul University in Chicago, where he also earned his MBA in Finance.

Sedrick Tydus

Chief Operating Officer

Sedrick Tydus has decades of experience in management, marketing and business strategy in the financial services and online industries. Tydus, like Grisham, is also a veteran of Wells Fargo & Company. He left his senior management position after 12 years at Wells to join Bank of America briefly, and then to run the fastest growing division of E-loan - its home equity division. He co-founded Alta Alliance Bank, which opened its doors in October 2006.

Tydus holds a B.A. degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford University. Has been active in local organizations such as Goodwill Industries of the East Bay, Urban League, East Bay College Fund, Oakland Babe Ruth and San Francisco Girl's Chorus.

Marshall Griffin

Chief Financial Officer

Marshall Griffin was the CFO at CMG Financial Services in San Ramon, a position he had held since 2002 until he joined Alta Alliance Bank. CMG Financial Services is a holding company for CMG Bank and CMG Mortgage, Inc. Since 2004, Griffin served simultaneously as controller of the mortgage company as well. He has a broad background in financial services that encompasses the investment banking, private equity and real estate industries. He holds a BA degree in History from the University of Colorado and an MBA in Finance from Escuela Superior de Administracion y Direccion de Empresas (ESADE) in Barcelona, Spain.

Glen Lezama

Chief Credit Officer

Glen has more than 20 years of experience assisting a wide variety of privately held local businesses with custom financing solutions for expansion, real property acquisition and investment in capital equipment. Until he joined Alta Alliance Bank in 2006, he had been the chief credit officer for Diablo Valley Bank. Prior to that he was a relationship manager at Bay Bank of Commerce in San Ramon and, immediately prior, was commercial loan manager for California Bank and Trust's San Francisco Region. From 1994 to 1999, Glen managed Union Bank of California's SBA function for Northern and Central California. During his banking career, he has managed traditional branch bank offices as well as business banking centers. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Queen's Royal College, Trinidad and Tobago, and is a graduate of the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. He has served on the boards of various community-based service organizations, several tasks forces appointed by the Mayor of San Francisco and as president of the board of Huckleberry Youth Programs.