The Signature Bank hires U.S. Bancorp financial consultant Cavner

On this day, longtime U.S. Bancorp Investments financial adviser Nadia Cavner became part of The Signature Bank’s team. The board voted unanimously to hire Cavner’s securities team in a special meeting that evening, The Signature Bank Chairman and CEO David Kunze said.

“This is a huge coup for our bank,” Kunze said the next morning. “It’s a great day for our clients and for all of our bank.”

Cavner heads the bank’s new brokerage division. She was named an executive vice president and will sit on the boards of the bank and its holding company. A compensation package was not disclosed.

Cavner had been with U.S. Bancorp – previously Firststar – for 14 years, building $470 million in assets under management. She opened today Nadia Cavner Group at The Signature Bank Investment Services inside the bank’s 2620 E. Sunshine branch and starts with a fresh slate.

Cavner's 3,000 clients have the choice of following her to The Signature Bank or sticking with U.S. Bancorp.

“I carefully considered this move,” Cavner said from her new office. “It has been Kunze’s leadership and integrity that most influenced my decision.”

Kunze said the bank had been recruiting Cavner for six years. He personally interviewed and hired each member of Cavner’s seven-person team, two of which are Series 6-licensed.

Cavner plans to continue selling Franklin Templeton, Putnam, Oppenheimer, Hartford

and other funds she previously offered. She has added broker-dealer Cambridge Investment Research Inc.’s family of funds at The Signature Bank.

“It’s really a great catch for Signature Bank,” Franklin Templeton Distributors President Peter Jones said from Florida. “Nadia is one of the great planners in the country.”

Cavner is ranked in the top 1 percent of Franklin Templeton investment advisers worldwide.

The past two years Cavner was chosen to Barron’s Top 100 Brokers in the Nation list and Research Magazine’s Top Ranked Women Financial Advisors in the Nation. In 2004, she was among U.S. Banker’s 25 Women to Watch, and in 2000, was a Springfield Business Journal Women in Business honoree.

“Nadia takes our bank to the next level,” Kunze said.

Other The Signature Bank red-letter days: start in 1997, hiring of president Rob Fulp and other Commerce Bank executives, merger with The Bank and opening of a St. Louis loan production office.

For the full story from the Sept. 12 issue of SBJ, click here.

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