Matt Mayo
Chief Risk Officer, Community Bank
Matt has spent nearly three decades in banking — starting in commercial lending at SouthTrust Bank after earning his B.S. in Banking & Depository Institution Management from the University of South Alabama (1998), later adding an MBA from Samford University and a credential from the Graduate School of Banking at LSU.
He's held a progression of senior roles at Community Bank (headquartered in Flowood, MS, operating across Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee): Executive Vice President & Chief Lending Officer for the Pine Belt Region, Chief Banking Officer (2023–2026), and currently Chief Risk Officer — with oversight spanning enterprise risk, operations, technology, and strategic innovation.
Matt has been outspoken on AI adoption in banking — not as hype, but as operational necessity. “Primary vendors are embedding [AI] within key operating systems, so banks won't be able to avoid it,” he told the Mississippi Business Journal, describing how AI now helps his team review loan files and detect check fraud (Community Bank screens 1,200–1,500 checks by hand every morning) — freeing staff for the relationship-building work that still can't be automated.
“Banking will change more in the next three years than in the past 30 added together.”
He's spoken on AI and frontline empowerment at industry events including the Customer Experience Exchange BFSI USA, and in 2024 was appointed by Governor Tate Reeves to the Mississippi State Board of Education (First Supreme Court District).
This site is where Matt writes about banking, technology, and leadership — and documents a side project: Cashe, an AI agent he's building and developing hands-on, from the ground up, as a way to build real, working expertise in how these systems actually behave. The Cashe Log is the public record of that experiment.