John Corbett

Chief Executive Officer & Director, SouthState Corp., Winter Haven

SouthState is a financial services company. Its SouthState Bank, the company’s nationally chartered bank subsidiary, provides consumer, commercial, mortgage, and wealth management services to more than 1 million customers throughout Florida, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. The company was formed in a $3-billion merger of a South Carolina bank, SouthState, and CenterState Bank, which Corbett had co-founded. Corbett, who was born in Miami, studied finance at Bob Jones University. He started his career in banking as a teller at First Union Bank in Haines City, where he was mentored by Ernie Pinner, area president for Polk County. In 1999, the two started a holding company that brought together a group of banks in Central Florida as CenterState. SouthState has more than 5,000 employees and is positioning itself as an alternative to large national banks for customers and companies looking to have a closer relationship with their bankers and local decision-making. SouthState bought Dallas-based Independent Bank Group in May for $2 billion. SouthState team members contributed nearly 11,000 service hours to more than 700 community organizations. "We believe the best way to build our bank is by investing our time and talents in the communities where we live,” Corbett wrote in the bank’s latest annual report.

EDUCATION: Bob Jones University (BS)