SWBC Announces Angelica Palm as New Chief Marketing Officer

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SWBC Announces Angelica Palm as New Chief Marketing Officer

2026-03-05 22:30 Last Updated At：22:40

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 5, 2026--

SWBC, a diversified financial services company, is pleased to announce Angelica Palm as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With more than 20 years of senior-level experience in marketing, communications, and brand strategy, Palm brings a proven track record of driving results and elevating brand presence. As CMO, Palm will lead SWBC’s marketing initiatives, positioning the company for continued success in its mission to deliver impactful solutions, enduring relationships, and exceptional service.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260305997932/en/

Palm joins SWBC from Texas Partners Bank, where she spent 10 years, most recently as Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications Director. In this role, she spearheaded enterprise-wide brand development, enhanced customer engagement, and optimized marketing channels across multiple markets.

“Angelica brings a level of strategic insight, creative vision, and operational excellence that will significantly strengthen our marketing initiatives across the entire organization,” said Charlie Amato, Chairman and Co-founder of SWBC. “Her experience makes her an exceptional fit for this role.”

“Angelica’s ability to bring strategy to life will help propel us into the next chapter of growth and innovation,” said Gary Dudley, President and Co-founder of SWBC. “We’re thrilled to welcome her to our executive leadership team.”

Palm holds a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism from Texas Christian University. Before joining Texas Partners Bank, Palm served in various roles at Giles-Parscale, McDonald’s Corporation, and Moroch Advertising, giving her a unique blend of corporate, agency, and regional-market expertise.

About SWBC

As a diversified financial services company, SWBC provides financial institutions, businesses, and individuals with a wide range of insurance, mortgages, wealth management, employee benefits, and more. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, SWBC has partners and divisions across all 50 states and Mexico and manages businesses worldwide. No matter how wide its reach, SWBC always listens to our customers’ needs, analyzes their current situations, and recommends customized solutions. For more information about our innovative approach to personalized service, visit SWBC’s website.

Sprawling investigation finds decades of sexual abuse among Catholic priests in Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Catholic priests in Rhode Island preyed on hundreds of children for decades and were protected by bishops more concerned with the church's reputation than the victims, according to a new report on clergy sexual abuse that echoes findings elsewhere.

The report, released Wednesday by Attorney General Peter Neronha, follows a multiyear investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island.

Neronha said the full scope of the priest abuse problem in Rhode Island — the smallest U.S. state but the one with the highest Catholic population per capita, at nearly 40% — had long remained elusive. He agreed with victims who say not enough has been done to address the problem long after it was exposed in the nearby Boston diocese in 2002.

“If you're the Diocese of Providence and you're listening, this is a scandal you need to own and you need to fix,” Neronha told reporters Wednesday. “We can’t slow walk solutions, and we can’t slow walk justice.”

Neronha, who was raised Catholic, hopes the report will spur legal reforms to boost investigative powers and help victims seek justice.

The investigation found that 75 Catholic clergy molested more than 300 victims since 1950, but officials stressed that the number of victimized children and abusive priests is likely much higher.

The diocese, in response, acknowledged the scourge of child sexual abuse — especially by clergy — but said the report reflects the church’s willingness to share internal records under a 2019 agreement with the state.

“The report presents this 75-year history in ways that might lead the reader to conclude these issues are an ongoing diocesan problem or that these are new revelations. They are not,” the statement said.

Church records show the diocese transferred accused priests to new assignments without fully investigating complaints or contacting law enforcement, a practice exposed in investigations in Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

And, as in other cities, the Diocese of Providence opened a “spiritual retreat-style facility” in the early 1950s for accused priests to seek treatment. Later, when the abuse was deemed a mental health problem, priests were sent to more formal treatment centers.

By the 1990s, accused priests were sometimes placed on sabbatical leave.

For example, a priest named Robert Carpentier resigned after a victim came forward in 1992 to say that he had been sexually abused as a 13-year-old victim in the 1970s. Carpentier acknowledged the abuse, was sent to a treatment center and later went on sabbatical at Boston College. He retired in 2006 and received support from the diocese until he died in 2012.

Most accused priests, the report found, avoided accountability from both law enforcement and the diocese.

Neronha's office has charged four current and former priests with sexual abuse for allegations stemming from 2020 to 2022. Three of them are still awaiting trial. The fourth priest died after being deemed incompetent to stand trial in 2022.

Only 20 people — about a quarter of the clergy identified in the report — faced criminal charges, and just 14 were convicted. A dozen others were laicized or otherwise dismissed.

One survivor described being groomed more than a year before he was abused by the pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Cranston in 1981. The survivor, who is not named in the report, said the late Monsignor John Allard showered him with attention. By ninth grade, he said, the sexual abuse began in the priest's bedroom.

“His comment to me was always, ‘You need a hug,’ and that’s something that I can hear him saying very clearly to this very day,” the survivor told officials in 2013.

While a review board deemed the abuse credible, the Vatican — at the urging of then-Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin — let Allard retire rather than be defrocked.

The report lists Tobin advocating for several accused priests, a trend that Neronha repeatedly criticized.

“I just don’t know how you square it. If he’s got an answer, then he’s free to send it in,” Neronha said.

The diocese, in a statement released Wednesday, praised Tobin's willingness to work with Neronha while he was bishop before retiring in 2023.

Separately, in at least one case, a member of the diocesan review board hearing abuse complaints was himself accused, the report says. The Rev. Francis Santilli stepped down after the complaint, but remained in active ministry even after other complaints surfaced in 2014 and 2021. He was not removed until 2022. A message left at a possible number for him on Wednesday was not immediately returned.

Neronha launched the investigation in 2019, a year after a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a landmark report that found some 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children since the 1940s.

However, Rhode Island law does not allow grand jury reports to become public — a hurdle that Neronha has long tried to change. Instead, he forged an agreement with the diocese to access its trove of records on clergy sexual abuse.

The church turned over 70 years’ worth of material, including complaints from its secret archives, civil settlement records, treatment costs and other documents. Yet Neronha called the diocese's help limited at times, saying it refused to provide diocesan personnel for interviews.

Neronha criticized the diocese on Wednesday for treating the report as “ancient history,” arguing that more needed to be done by clergy leaders to address ongoing concerns about abuse. His office outlined multiple changes for the diocese, including providing clear investigative timelines and guidelines. He also stressed the need for the diocese to abandon the practice of requiring victims take polygraph tests and to stop refusing to investigate third-party complaints about priests.

The diocese, in its response Wednesday, pushed back on that view, saying the report would not have been possible without the church's cooperation.

“There are no credibly accused clergy in active ministry,” said Bishop Bruce Lewandowski in a video statement. “Today’s Catholic clergy here in Rhode Island are good and holy men serving Christ and his people with devotion and out of genuine pastoral concern.”

For Herbert Brennan, who was repeatedly abused by a Rhode Island priest in the 1960s, the diocese’s response is disappointing but not surprising.

“If one wants to learn the teachings of Jesus Christ, they should read the Bible. If one wishes to understand the Catholic church, read this report,” Brennan said.

Dale reported from Philadelphia.