New York Community Bancorp, Inc. has appointed George F. Buchanan III as executive vice president and Chief Risk Officer and Colleen McCullum as executive vice president and Chief Audit Executive, effective immediately. Buchanan brings over 30 years of financial services-related risk management and credit experience, having previously held roles at First Union, AmSouth Bank, US Bank, and Regions Bank. McCullum joins the company from United Community Bank, where she was Chief Audit Executive, and spent considerable time at large banks, including Capital One, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

Most recently, George F. Buchanan served in Regions' credit review area. Prior to this, he spent five years as Chief Risk officer for Consumer Banking and Wealth Management, with responsibility for all aspects of risk management. Additionally, Buchanan led numerous areas within the credit division, including commercial, private wealth, small business, and business services.

Buchanan previously oversaw risk for the Consumer and Wealth Management Groups for Regions, a regional bank that operates throughout the South, Midwest and Texas and is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to this role, Buchanan was the Commercial Credit Executive with responsibility for all credit risk management activities within the Commercial Banking and Private Wealth segments of Regions. He re-joined Regions in 2011 from US Bank where he served as senior vice president and Chief Credit officer for Small Business and Affluent Banking.

Prior to joining US Bank in 2007, Buchanan was the Business Banking Senior Credit officer for Regions, where he served in many credit roles during his 13 years with the bank. Buchanan began his banking career at First Union in 1992 as a credit analyst. Most recently, Colleen McCullum served as Chief Audit Executive at United Community Bank.

She joined United Community Bank as part of the bank's effort to dramatically rescale the internal audit program in line with heightened standards. Prior to joining United Community Bank, Colleen spent three years at Capital One, most recently serving as senior vice president and Head of Line-of-Business Audit. She led a team of 90 employees providing assurance coverage for all lines of business.

Prior to that role, she was responsible for Audit Strategy, Practices, and Innovation at Capital One, where she led an audit team responsible for implementing a new audit platform. Before joining Capital One, Colleen spent three years at Bank of America as senior vice president and General Auditor. Colleen had previously spent 15 years at Wells Fargo, where she progressed through the organization and became Head of Counterparty Credit Risk.

She successfully implemented a remediation strategy for long-outstanding regulatory matters, which resulted in successful resolution. She also previously served as Chief Risk officer for the EMEA region. She spent seven years at Mellon Bank earlier in her career.