BONNIE LEE
President and Chief Executive Officer
Hanmi Financial Corporation & Hanmi Bank
In May 2019, Bonita Lee became the first female CEO in the Hanmi Bank’s 40-year history and became one of only ten female CEOs in the public banking industry. She joined Hanmi in August of 2013 as senior executive vice president and chief operating officer and was promoted to president in 2018.
Since becoming CEO, Lee has led the bank through a significant multi-year business transformation positioning Hanmi for strong growth. During her tenure, Hanmi has strengthened and grown its balance sheet, diversified its loan portfolio, invested in back-end technology to improve operations and data analytics, increased loan production, enhanced digital banking capabilities, improved the customer experience, and invested significantly in training the next generation of bankers. Under her leadership, the bank has also formalized and expanded its successful Corporate Korea Initiative to provide financial services to South Korean companies operating in the US.
