Mississippi's Clayton Legear to Give Community Banker Keynote

Clayton Legear, president and CEO of Pascagoula, Mississippi-based Merchants and Marine Bank (MMB), will be the community banker keynote speaker for the tenth annual Community Banking Research Conference, scheduled for Sept. 28-29, 2022. The invitation-only conference will be a hybrid event this year, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and via an online conference platform.

Legear joined MMB in 2011 as a compliance manager and chief risk officer and rose through the ranks to become president and CEO in 2019. In August 2021, he was appointed to the Mississippi State Board of Banking Review by Governor Tate Reeves to fill one of two seats on the board reserved for active officers or directors of state-chartered banks. Legear is also involved with several civic, charitable and professional organizations throughout the Gulf Coast region, including Leadership Mississippi, the United Way and the Gulf Coast Business Council. Prior to joining MMB, Legear served as an examiner and deposit insurance claims specialist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Legear holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Troy University, Troy, Alabama, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. He also holds a Graduate Banking Certificate from the Graduate School of Banking of the South at Louisiana State University.