Patriot National gets serious about private banking

Two months after shepherding a $58 million private placement to completion, Patriot National Bancorp CEO Steven Sugarman is remaking the Connecticut bank’s board and management team.

Patriot, which has $957 million of assets, announced a number of new director and executive appointments on Monday. Most prominently, Private Bank of California founder Richard Smith is joining the board, and Nicole Wells, who previously served as head strategic retail operations at Santander Bank, will serve as senior vice president and head of operations.

Several of the incoming faces are familiar to Sugarman from his earlier stints at Banc of California and The Change Company. They’ll assist in implementing a new strategy for Stamford, Connecticut-based Patriot, focusing on the high-net-worth segment.

“Their collective expertise and vision will advance Patriot’s mission to empower our clients while delivering exceptional value to our shareholders,” Sugarman said in a press release. 

Sugarman, 50, joined Patriot as president in January. He was appointed CEO April 30. He is tasked with turning around an underperforming bank that’s reported heavy losses in recent years — $4.5 million in 2023, $39.9 million in 2024, followed by $2.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency classified Patriot as being “in troubled condition” in January.

While the fiscal red ink ate away at Patriot’s capital position, the private placement announced in March gave the company renewed room to maneuver, boosting its common equity tier 1 capital ratio to 13.62% at March 31, up from 7.58% three months earlier. 

An emphasis on high-net-worth clients jibes with Patriot’s geographic footprint. It operates branches in the Fairfield, Connecticut, region and in Westchester County, New York — both among the wealthiest communities in America, with median household incomes well above $115,000. Fairfield and Westchester border each other and have a combined $321 billion of deposits, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. statistics. Patriot holds a 0.19% market share. 

In other appointments announced Monday, Patriot tabbed Paul Simmons as chief credit officer. Rebecca Mais will serve as president for high-net-worth and specialty deposits, and Raquel Gillett joined the company as vice president for digital automation and risk analytics.

Mais comes to Patriot from Change Home Mortgage. Simmons was chief credit officer at the $3.5 billion-asset SunWest Bank in Sandy, Utah. Before joining SunWest in 2020, Simmons was chief credit officer at Silvergate Bank and Banc of California. 

“I am excited to be a part of this high-performing executive team … and to contribute to Patriot Bank’s turnaround,” Simmons said in the press release. 

Smith is currently a director at the $2.4 billion-asset CalPrivate Bank in La Jolla. In 2005, he founded another Golden State bank, Private Bank of California, and led it until its 2012 sale to Banc of California.

“Patriot Bank’s commitment to serving high net worth clients and their advisors aligns with my passion for fostering strong client relationships,” Smith said in the press release. 

Patriot also appointed Change Company executives Jeff Seabold and Thedora Nickel as directors.  

Sugarman founded the Anaheim, California-based Change Company, a community development financial institution, in 2017.  He served as CEO at Banc of California from 2013 to 2017.

Patriot had not responded to American Banker’s request for comment at deadline.