ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2026--
Pinnacle Financial Partners (NYSE: PNFP) has named Douglas Hromco as its new chief security officer. He will lead enterprise cybersecurity, fraud prevention and physical and information security strategies across the combined company and will be based at the firm’s holding company headquarters in Atlanta.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260507005083/en/
“Doug has spent his career building and leading security programs inside complex financial institutions, and he’s earned the trust of boards, regulators and executive teams along the way,” said Zack Bishop, chief operating officer. “He understands how to bring together systems, people and processes in a way that protects clients and supports growth, which is exactly what we need as we continue to scale.”
This role is key to Pinnacle’s senior leadership team following its recent merger with Synovus, which created a $123 billion regional bank serving clients across the Southeast. The firm continues to invest in leadership, technology and risk management capabilities to support its growth while maintaining strong credit discipline and operational soundness.
“Security is fundamental to the trust our clients and shareholders place in us every day,” Hromco said. “As Pinnacle continues to grow, we have to be deliberate about protecting our clients, their information and the firm itself. What drew me here is a culture built on shared accountability, strong partnerships and doing the right thing the right way. When you combine that mindset with the talent and experience across our security teams, we are exceptionally well-positioned to support the company’s growth while maintaining the safety of our clients.”
Hromco steps into the role following the retirement of Kevin Gowen, who served as CSO at Synovus Financial Corp. for 30 years. During his tenure, Gowen led the company’s cyber and infrastructure security, providing strategic oversight of an evolving security landscape during rapid and sophisticated advances in cyber threats and technologies. At the same time, Synovus was on a steep growth trajectory, requiring scale and increased regulatory preparation as the bank came together under a single charter and brand.
“Kevin’s time at Synovus was transformative, and we’re so grateful for his steady leadership,” said Kevin Blair, Pinnacle president and CEO. “He’s built a solid foundation for the future that Douglas will lead into the next phase as one of the strongest and best regarded regional banks in the country.”
Hromco brings more than 25 years of experience in cybersecurity, risk management and technology leadership in financial services. Most recently, he was a managing director at Accenture, advising boards and executive teams on cybersecurity strategy, regulatory readiness and large-scale security transformation. He previously served as chief information security officer for a multi-state community bank, where he led enterprise security, cloud security, data privacy and identity and access management programs. Earlier in his career, he held senior cybersecurity and risk leadership roles at Huntington Bank and Nationwide Insurance.
Hromco holds an MBA from The Ohio State University and a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. Coming to Atlanta from Columbus, Ohio, Hromco has served the community through board leadership at an early learning center for underserved families.
About Pinnacle Financial Partners
Pinnacle Financial Partners, Inc. (“Pinnacle”) is a $122.8 billion asset regional bank which provides a full range of banking, investment, trust, mortgage and insurance products and services for commercial and consumer clients who want a comprehensive relationship with their financial institution. The firm joined forces with Synovus Financial Corp. in 2026, bringing together more than 160 years of combined banking service. Pinnacle is the largest bank headquartered in Tennessee and the largest bank holding company headquartered in Georgia. The firm is No. 1 in deposit market share* in the Nashville MSA and No. 4 in the Atlanta MSA with offices in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland.
Pinnacle is an employer of choice for financial services professionals. The firm is No. 12 in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® in 2026, its 10th consecutive appearance. Pinnacle was also recognized by American Banker as No. 4 among America’s Best Banks to Work For in 2025, its 13th consecutive year on the list, and No. 1 among banks with more than $10 billion in assets. Learn more about Pinnacle at PNFP.com.
*As of June 30, 2025, according to FDIC data.
Doug Hromco has been named Chief Security Officer at Pinnacle Financial Partners.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed “efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East” in talks at the Vatican on Thursday aimed at easing tensions following U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Rubio met with Leo and then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a visit that lasted 2½ hours.
Also, Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Here's the latest:
Standing alongside Gulf allies, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz called on the U.N. Security Council -- more notably Iran’s allies, Russia and China -- to support a resolution that would condemn Tehran’s actions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and threaten sanctions if it does not release its chokehold.
The resolution -- put forth by the U.S. and Bahrain -- is the second attempt to punish Iran for leveraging its hold over the vital waterway since U.S. and Israeli strikes ignited the war in late February.
“So we’re giving the U.N. and the Security Council another chance to get back to basics, to uphold these basic principles,” Waltz said Thursday. ”...If aid fails to reach the very people that the countries in the council claim to care about, what does that really say for the U.N.? What does that say for these countries?”
Iran established the new government agency to approve transit and collect tolls from shipping in the strait, shipping data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence said Thursday. The move has raised concerns about eroding the freedom of navigation on which global trade depends.
The agency, called the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, is “positioning itself as the only valid authority to grant permission to ships transiting the strait,” Lloyd’s reported in an online briefing. Lloyd’s said the authority had emailed it an application form for ships seeking passage.
The Iranian effort to formalize control over the channel comes as hundreds of commercial ships remain bottled up in the Persian Gulf and unable to reach the open sea.
▶ Read more
A group of Democratic U.S. senators have called for the U.S. Central Command to answer questions about American coordination with Israel in declaring broad “ evacuation zones ” in Lebanon and Iran, alleging the practice may violate international law.
The letter underlines how the Democratic Party — both its leaders and the base — has grown increasingly critical of Israel.
Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, the Israeli military has regularly issued maps covering large areas of territory along with warnings telling all residents of the zones to flee. Israel had previously used a similar approach in Gaza.
The senators said the sweeping warnings have “been used to permanently displace people and destroy homes and towns” and that some civilians who refused to leave their homes in the areas have been killed by subsequent strikes.
▶ Read more
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans for the closed-door talks, said the meeting would take place next week on May 14 and 15. The official did not specify the venue but the previous two rounds have taken place at the State Department and the White House.
The earlier rounds were led by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States, although Secretary of State Marco Rubio participated in both and President Trump greeted the participants at the second.
— Matthew Lee
The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on an Iraqi oil official, several Iraqi firms and leaders of Iran-backed militias accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions and finance militants.
The Treasury Department alleges that Iraq’s deputy oil minister, Ali Maarij Al-Bahadly, helped divert Iraqi oil and falsify documents so Iranian oil could be sold as Iraqi oil, benefiting Iran and allied militias.
“Treasury will not stand idly by as Iran’s military exploits Iraqi oil to fund terrorism against the United States and our partners,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Thursday.
The Vatican said the “need to work tirelessly in favor of peace” was discussed in talks Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who came to Rome on a fence-mending visit after President Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
During Rubio’s meeting with Leo, and the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America was reaffirmed,” the Vatican said.
In a statement, the Vatican said the two sides then exchanged views on current events “with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as on the need to work tirelessly in favor of peace.”
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are debating a plan that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.
Protesters shouted “No Jim Crow” outside the House and Senate chambers as lawmakers convened to consider the legislation. The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
▶ Read more
The U.S. stock market is holding near its records as oil prices keep dropping on hopes that a deal may be nearing to allow tankers to carry crude once again from the Persian Gulf.
The S&P 500 added 0.1% early Thursday to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 193 points, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1%.
DoorDash jumped after reporting better results than expected. Whirlpool tumbled after reporting much weaker results than expected. The seller of home appliances said it would raise prices by at least 10% for some of its offerings, while accelerating cost cuts.
▶ Read more
Supreme Court justices are not “political actors,” Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday, insisting unpopular court decisions are based solely on the law.
“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” he said. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”
His remarks to a conference of judges and lawyers from the 3rd U.S. Circuit in Pennsylvania came at a time of low public confidence in the court, and about a week after the court handed down a decision that hollowed out the Voting Rights Act.
▶ Read more
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to take up a plan Thursday that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.
The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
The court ruled Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law. The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
▶ Read more
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Pope Leo XIV and then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a visit that lasted 2½ hours.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Rubio and Leo discussed the situation in the Middle East “and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere. The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.
In a separate statement about the Parolin meeting, Pigott said the two diplomats discussed “ongoing humanitarian efforts in the Western Hemisphere and efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East. The discussion reflected the enduring partnership between the United States and the Holy See in advancing religious freedom,” the statement said.
▶ Read more
Trump’s lawyer, hoping for an eventual Supreme Court victory, has asked a federal appeals court in New York to temporarily block a longtime columnist from collecting an $83 million defamation award.
The lawyer told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Tuesday to stay its decision supporting the award so that Trump won’t have to pay writer E. Jean Carroll while he appeals to the high court.
A Manhattan jury awarded Carroll the payout in January 2024. Another jury in May 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding Trump sexually abused her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in 1996 and then defamed her after she published her account of it in 2019.
Trump has vehemently denied sexually abusing Carroll or ever knowing her and has repeatedly accused her of making accusations against him for political purposes or to promote her memoir.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan, who represents Carroll, declined to comment through a spokesperson.
▶ Read more
Trump’s proposal to put a coat of white paint on the exterior of a 19th-century historic landmark building next to the White House is slated for a hearing Thursday by a key federal agency, which he expects to approve what would be a dramatic makeover.
The National Capital Planning Commission is scheduled to begin considering the plan on Thursday, according to its meeting agenda. Trump calls for painting all or most of the Eisenhower building’s gray granite exterior with white paint. He last year called the gray a “really bad color.”
But the proposal has alarmed preservationists, architects, historians and others who argue that granite is not meant to be painted and that paint would trap moisture, deteriorate the stone and not solve problems the administration wants to fix.
▶ Read more
The Trump administration’s approach to the Iran war over the past 24 hours has pinballed from declarations that a tenuous ceasefire was holding and military operations were over to new threats of bombing the Islamic Republic.
Tuesday started with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explaining how the U.S. military was protecting stranded ships so they could traverse the Strait of Hormuz.
That afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House that the military operation was “concluded” and that the U.S. achieved its objectives. But in almost the same breath, he said Trump was still seeking a “path of peace” that required Iran to agree to a deal to reopen the vital oil shipping corridor.
By Tuesday evening, Trump announced that the effort to protect ships was paused to see if an agreement could be reached. Then on Wednesday morning, he again warned that bombing would resume if Tehran didn’t agree to U.S. terms.
▶ Read more
Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.
Hope that the two-month conflict could soon end buoyed international markets on Thursday, even as the U.S. military fired on an Iranian oil tanker attempting to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports hours earlier. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Trump posted on social media that the two-month war could soon end and that oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict could restart. But he said that depends on Iran accepting a reported agreement that he did not detail.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts,” Trump wrote.
▶ Read more
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a fence-mending visit to the Vatican on Thursday after President Donald Trump’s broadsides against Pope Leo XIV and the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran angered the Holy See and sparked ongoing sparring between the two American leaders.
Rubio, a practicing Catholic, had an audience scheduled with Leo, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. Leo has pushed back, calling out Trump’s misrepresentations of his views on Iran and nuclear weapons and insisting that he is merely preaching the biblical message of peace.
Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms. “Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.
Parolin said Washington had requested Rubio’s audience, and that the pope was open to continued dialogue.
▶ Read more
President Donald Trump speaks during a Mother's Day event for members of the military, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in the East Room of the White House, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump adjusts his microphone while speaking during an event for military mothers in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
