Ron Branscum, NWA market president for The Citizens Bank, returns to Arvest Bank

Veteran Northwest Arkansas banker Ron Branscum has started a second stint at Arvest Bank.

Branscum has been hired as a senior vice president and commercial banker, overseeing Arvest’s commercial lenders in Rogers, where it has 8 branch locations. He will work primarily from Arvest branches in downtown Rogers and Village on the Creeks.

Arvest officials made the announcement Thursday (May 2).

“Ron’s knowledge and expertise are evident, and we couldn’t be more pleased to add him to our team,” said Jason England, commercial loan manager for Arvest in Benton County. “He is a fantastic asset for the bank, and more importantly, for our customers.”

Branscum was previously the first Northwest Arkansas market president for Batesville-chartered The Citizens Bank, which entered the market in 2015 and has three offices in the region. Branscum joined the bank as city president of the Rogers market in June 2017 and was promoted this past September.

A Jacksonville native, Branscum previously worked for Arvest Bank in Benton County from 1998 to 2010, beginning as a senior credit analyst and then working his way up the commercial lending ladder. Branscum left the banking industry for private business from 2010 to 2017, working as president of a speech therapy company in Rogers called Regional Therapy Services, running the day-to-day operations of a business he owns with his wife, Deedra, who launched the company in 2001.

Branscum is a member of the NorthWest Arkansas Community College board of trustees. He is also a director on the board of the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, Little Rock-based nonprofit Family Council — one of the state’s leading conservative groups — and Blackwood Industries Inc., a Florida-based private company that has clients in the food-service, CPG and product development industries. It has an office in Bentonville.

Arvest Bank had assets of $18.4 billion as of Dec. 31, 2018.