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Times Staff WriterNEW POSITION: Chief financial officer, Signature Bank, St. Petersburg. PREVIOUS POSITION: Private consultant, Everett Financial Consulting, St. Petersburg
Ann R. Worthington's career has been by the numbers.
She learned the banking and finance business from the ground up, working as a bank teller while in college and steadily rising through the ranks to hold key jobs in several companies. Now she is chief financial officer for Signature Bank, in charge of accounting and finance areas, operations, asset liability management, "just about everything with a number attached.
"I do cash management calls to business customers, assisting them with their higher end needs," she said.
Worthington said she also is involved in establishing two new Signature Bank branches in 2005, in Clearwater and Pinellas Park. That will make five Pinellas County locations for the St. Petersburg-based bank. "We'll be doing more branches later next year," Worthington added. Signature Bank has more than $135-million in assets.
"I just love the numbers game," Worthington said. "The numbers never lie.
"The numbers can help with historical information as well as projecting future performance" of a company. "Obviously, numbers show a road map of where an organization has been and they can also predict where and how an organization can move forward into the future."
A native of Cleveland, Worthington earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Kenyon College in 1972 and a master's degree in accounting, in 1974, from the University of South Florida.
She worked in banking until she passed her CPA exam in 1980 and joined Peat Marwick in St. Petersburg in accounting. Four years later, she joined SouthTrust Bank as a controller, rising to chief financial officer. In 1997, she moved to Birmingham, Ala., to be SouthTrust Corp.'s "senior vice president in charge of continuous improvement and mergers and acquisitions." She returned to St. Petersburg to join Bankers Insurance Co., as chief financial officer, in 1999. Two years later, she went to work for Everett Financial Consulting in St. Petersburg as a private consultant until joining Signature Bank in August.
"I guess I have learned a lot along the way and (I) know what I'm doing," said Worthington, 54. "There's a comfort level there.
"I have a lot of experience in banking. I started as a teller way back when, even before I joined the CPA firm. I've worked my way up through the ranks. I've performed just about every job there is in the bank at one time or another."
Yet the industry still offers challenges, Worthington said. Technology requires the banking industry to stay alert.
"Technology is a big part of our business and it's changing every day," she said. "Internet banking and security on the Internet are always a real concern."
In her spare time, Worthington, who is single, said she likes to play tennis as well as take scuba and sailing trips to the British Virgin Islands. She lives in St. Petersburg.