Financial Institution Representative
Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Local Bank
Hulbert, OK
Susan Chapman Plumb serves as Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Local Bank headquartered in Hulbert, Oklahoma. Local Bank is a Native-owned CDFI with locations in Hulbert, Tahlequah, Park Hill, Sallisaw and Grove, Oklahoma.
Local Bank was founded in 1907 by a prominent group of Cherokee Nation citizens and purchased by the Chapman family and other Cherokee investors in 1996. Plumb succeeded her father as board chair and CEO in 2017.
Local Bank has grown significantly under Plumb's leadership and is one of the fastest-growing financial institutions in the state. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Plumb is the only female Native American bank owner in the United States. Local Bank is dedicated to serving rural, low-income and minority communities. Unlike larger lending institutions, Local Bank invests 95% of its deposits back into the communities it serves.
Plumb's lifelong commitment to public service is both professional and personal. She has been in service to the Federal Reserve since 2017 and currently serves on the Federal Reserve Bank's Kansas City Board of Directors. She has served on the boards of Northeastern Health System and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. She has also been active in public service to the Cherokee Nation for decades. Her past roles include Chairperson of the Cherokee Nation Election Commission and as a board member for the Cherokee National Historical Society and the Cherokee Nation Education Foundation. Plumb was also a delegate to the Cherokee Nation's historic 1999 Constitutional Convention. She is the third in her family to help draft a Cherokee Nation Constitution, following in the footsteps of her father Gary who served on the Cherokee Nation’s 1975 Constitutional Convention and her direct ancestor Hair Conrad, a signer of the 1827 Cherokee Constitution.
Plumb earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma and a juris doctorate from the University of Tulsa, where she received a certificate in American Indian Law. She practiced law for ten years before returning to her banking roots. She and her husband, Loyal Plumb, have four daughters and are the proud grandparents to ten grandchildren. Plumb lives on the upper Illinois River in rural Cherokee County, Oklahoma.