Synovus Names Chief Operations Officer

Synovus Financial Corp. has named Allen J. Gula, Jr. as its chief operations officer. In this newly created position, Gula is responsible for the Columbus, Georgia-based financial services company's operations and information technology.

Gula brings to Synovus more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, during which he has held executive positions in e-commerce, payment solutions, technology, operations and strategic business planning. Most recently, he worked as a senior executive at Greater Bay Bancorp in San Franciso, now a unit of Wells Fargo & Co. Gula has also served as executive vice president at KeyCorp, chairman and CEO of Key Services and as a board member at KeyBank North America, MasterCard USA and Inktomi.

"We are pleased to have a leader with Al's experience and reputation join our company at this important time," said Kessel D. Stelling, president and CEO of Synovus, in a statement released with the announcement. "His diverse background and broad perspective of the financial services industry will be invaluable to our company as we continue to become a more efficient, value-generating company that is committed to relationship-based banking."