Sherry Kinard
Vice President – Government Guaranteed Lending Manager BrandBank
Sherry Kinard didn’t become the government guar-anteed lending manager at BrandBank overnight. She steadily ascended in the banking field, first working in the home equity department at Regions Bank in 1999. She then became a loan processor, a portfolio manager, and finally moved on to business development.
Kinard, a graduate of Clark Atlanta University with a bachelor’s in history, has held her position at Brand-Bank’s GGL division — one of the top SBA lenders in Georgia — since 2011. Additionally, the Greenwood, South Carolina, native is a board member of the nonprofit business development organization DEBCO and serves on the Small Lender Committee for the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, and on the InvestAtlanta loan committee.
Kinard maintains that her family is one of her biggest motivators for continuing on a path to greatness. While she says her parents, her husband and her siblings are great support systems, she declares that her son, Jalen, is the one who inspires her the most.
“At this point, my biggest motivation is my son,” Kinard says. “I had a wonderful childhood and I am deter-mined to give him better.”
Her faith is also a major factor in how she sustains de-termination and remains strong. One of Kinard’s favorite quotes is from Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.”
“Keep him first!” she says of God. “Having a relation-ship with the Father helps to keep life in order.”
Kinard believes in helping to “inspire this generation of women.” As an expert in the banking field, she has sound advice for women who are looking to increase the digits in their bank account.
“Women have to prioritize,” Kinard insists. “Most women cannot demand pay increases, but they can look for other revenue streams and learn to save and invest.”
