Shaza Andersen

Shaza Andersen serves as a founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Trustar Bank. Trustar Bank serves the Greater Washington market focusing on delivering personal service, responsiveness and a willingness to tailor products and services to meet the needs of our customers. Upon opening in 2019, Trustar Bank was the first Virginia based bank to be chartered in over a decade.

Most recently, Ms. Andersen served as the Vice Chair of the Board of Sandy Spring Bank. Prior to joining the Board, Ms. Andersen founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of WashingtonFirst Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of WashingtonFirst Bankshares, Inc.  Ms. Andersen’s leadership grew the Bank from a single De Novo branch to over $2 billion in assets, with 19 branches in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. Ms. Andersen completed the sale of WFBI to Sandy Spring Bancorp (NASDQ: SASR) for $489M in stock, which equates to 256% of its tangible book value.  By dollar value, it is the largest banking deal in the Mid-Atlantic region and ranks among the 10 largest deals in the country.

Ms. Andersen is a member of the Board of Directors of Forge Insurance, serving on the Audit and Compensation committees, the Board of Commissioners of the Virginia Port Authority and a past member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, where she was the Vice Chair of the Corporate Governance Committee and a member of the Housing Committee and served on the Treasury Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Community Banking.

A favored and sought-after authority on banking and capital market issues, Ms. Andersen has appeared on CNBC and Fox News, and been featured in Forbes Magazine, the Washington Business Journal and Washingtonian Magazine.