Rebeca Romero Rainey, president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA), will deliver the opening keynote address at the 70th Annual School Session for the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado (GSBC) on Monday, July 19, 2021.

Romero Rainey is one of the nation’s foremost advocates of the community banking industry, with a focus on regulatory reform for United States’ nearly 5,000 community banks. Romero Rainey is a third-generation community banker, born and raised in Taos, N.M. and is the former chairman and CEO of Centinel Bank of Taos. Upon graduating from Wellesley College, she returned home to Taos with the dream of continuing her family’s business of running the town’s only local community bank.

Her broader service to the community banking industry began when she joined the board of the Independent Community Bankers of New Mexico, where she served as president from 2007 to 2008. She entered the national stage by becoming active within ICBA and serving on several committees. Romero Rainey also played a key role in the formation of ICBA’s Minority Bank Council and served as its first chairman. Later she was nominated to become a member of ICBA’s Executive Committee and, in 2016, became ICBA chairman.

Romero Rainey served on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Advisory Committee on Community Banking and the Kansas City Federal Reserve Community Depository Institution Advisory Council.

“It is an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to host Rebeca at GSBC this July,” stated GSBC President Tim Koch. “I have seen first-hand just how hard community banks have worked for the communities they serve this past year. Having a community bank advocate – who has been a community banker herself – address our students could not be more timely than it is right now.”