Board of Directors

Christopher D. Maher has served as Chairman of the Company and the Bank since January 2017 and as CEO of the Company and the Bank since January 2015. He previously served as President of the Bank from January 1, 2015 to January 1, 2021, at which time he was succeeded by Mr. Lebel. He joined the Company and the Bank in 2013 as President and Chief Operating Officer and was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2014. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Maher served as President and CEO of Patriot National Bancorp and Patriot National Bank since 2010.

Mr. Maher is active in the non-profit community, serving as a Trustee of both Helen Keller Services for the Blind and Monmouth University and as a Director of Hackensack Meridian Health Residential Care. He is also active within the banking industry, as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia since 2020 and as a member of the Board of the New Jersey Bankers Association, where he serves as Vice President.

Anthony R. Coscia was the Chairman of the Boards of Sun Bancorp, Inc. and Sun National Bank from December 2016. Mr. Coscia served as a Director of Sun Bancorp, Inc. since 2010 and Sun National Bank since 2011 and was a member of the ALCO Committee and Chair of the Executive Committee, until its acquisition by the Company in January 2018, at which time Mr. Coscia joined the Company’s Board. Mr. Coscia is admitted to the state bars of New Jersey and New York and is a Partner of Windels Marx, having been with the firm for over 30 years. Mr. Coscia’s legal practice focuses on corporate, commercial, and real estate matters, with a concentration on the financial and real estate elements of these transactions. Mr. Coscia serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), having been appointed to the Board of Amtrak by President Obama in 2010 and reappointed in 2015. Mr. Coscia is Chairman of Suez North America, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Suez Environnement SAS. Mr. Coscia previously served as Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for over eight years, stepping down in 2011. Mr. Coscia is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and received his law degree from Rutgers University School of Law.

Mr. Coscia serves as trustee of Georgetown University and the New Jersey Community Development Corporation and is a member of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Council of Trustees, the Partnership for New York City, The Economic Club of New York and the Regional Plan Association. In 2007, Mr. Coscia was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Mr. Coscia’s extensive background and reputation as a well-respected business leader actively involved in both the private and government sectors brings significant management and leadership skills to the Board.

Michael D. Devlin has served as a Director since May 2016 when the Company acquired Cape Bancorp, Inc. and Cape Bank, of which Mr. Devlin was a Director since 2008, and President and Chief Executive Officer since 2009. Mr. Devlin currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Marquette National Corporation, a bank holding company based in Chicago, Illinois.

Mr. Devlin brings extensive banking and management expertise to the Board of Directors, particularly as to the southern markets and communities served by the Company.

Jack M. Farris was the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, InfoSec & Cybersecurity for Verizon Communications, Inc., one of the world’s leading wireline, wireless and business communications companies, until his retirement in 2018. Mr. Farris was appointed to this position in early 2017 and prior to that had served in a variety of legal and management functions, providing legal support for systems and technology procurement, global operations security, finance operations, regulatory compliance and transactional matters, and business continuity and pandemic planning, as well as information technology and information security matters. In 2020, Mr. Farris formed Practical RM Associates, a company established to provide cyber and risk management services. In addition to his undergraduate and law degrees, Mr. Farris holds a Master of Science in computer engineering and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional under (ISC)².

Mr. Farris’s experience as a senior manager of a large corporation and his expertise in information technology and information security brings to the Board extensive knowledge and capability relating to communications, information technology, and cybersecurity, as well as significant experience in litigation, transactional matters and regulatory compliance.

Kim M. Guadagno is the President and CEO of Fulfill, a non-profit food bank committed to fighting hunger in Monmouth and Ocean Counties, New Jersey, which serves over 200,000 food-insecure individuals annually. She is also a partner with the law firm Connell Foley LLP and previously was the first Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey, serving from 2010 to 2018. She has also served eight years as New Jersey’s 33rd Secretary of State and in 2007 was elected the first woman sheriff of the Office of the Sheriff in Monmouth County. Ms. Guadagno founded the New Jersey Partnership for Action, a public-private partnership that promotes New Jersey businesses and job creation and chaired the Red Tape Review Commission, a bipartisan group charged with streamlining government services, cutting red tape, and proposing policy recommendations to further reduce the regulatory burdens on businesses. Ms. Guadagno has served 13 years in public service and has been an attorney for more than three decades.

Ms. Guadagno is a well-regarded leader in both the private and government sectors and brings significant managerial and legal skills to the Board.

Mr. Katsoulis is the former Executive Vice President/Commercial Real Estate of OceanFirst Bank, N.A., having retired in November 2018. Mr. Katsoulis joined the Bank upon the Bank’s acquisition of Sun National Bank in January 2018. At Sun, Mr. Katsoulis was Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer, overseeing all lending activities including commercial and industrial and commercial real estate lending. During his banking career, Mr. Katsoulis served as a director of State Bancorp., Inc. and as Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer of Atlantic Bank of New York. Mr. Katsoulis is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Columbia University’s graduate school of business.

Mr. Katsoulis brings extensive banking and managerial experience to the Board, particularly with the commercial lending environment within the Bank’s current footprint and potential areas for expansion. He has been an active investor in commercial real estate, dry bulk shipping, and renewable energy

Joseph J. Lebel III was appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of OceanFirst Bank on January 1, 2021 and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of OceanFirst Financial Corp. in June 2020.  Prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Bank since January 2019 and has previously served as Chief Banking Officer and Chief Lending Officer.  Prior to joining OceanFirst, Mr. Lebel was employed with Wachovia Bank N.A.

Mr. Lebel serves as a Trustee on various non-profits, including Community Medical Center, part of the St. Barnabas Health System, and is also a Board member of St. Joseph and Donovan Catholic schools.  He recently completed nine years of service as a Trustee to Fulfill, a food bank based in Ocean and Monmouth Counties.  He also is a Director for the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. 

Mr. Lebel provides significant leadership skills and in-depth experience in all facets of commercial and real estate lending to the Board as well as extensive knowledge of the Bank's markets and strategic outlook.  

Joseph M. Murphy, Jr. had served on the Board of Directors of Country Bank Holding Company since 2003 and on the Board of Country Bank since 1995. Country Bank was a Manhattan-based community bank acquired by the Company on January 1, 2020. He served as Executive Vice President beginning in 1997, President beginning in 2008 and President/CEO since 2012. He was Chairman of the Loan and Technology Committees throughout his tenure. Country Bank specialized in real estate lending to small businesses and commercial real estate investors and was ranked in the “Top 200 Community Banks” nationwide by US Banker magazine five of the past ten years before its acquisition.

Prior to joining Country Bank, Mr. Murphy co-founded a commercial mortgage conduit, ValuExpress LLC, which had originated over $2.0 billion in loans for the real estate capital markets. For over 30 years he has owned and managed family real estate investments in various commercial properties throughout the United States. He currently serves as EVP of ValuExpress LLC and as President of Value Investors, Inc., his family’s investment office.

Mr. Murphy has served on the Board of Directors for the New York Chapter of Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Finance Advisory Committee of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, and the Board of Trustees for the Greater New York Chapter of the American Red Cross. He also served on the Community Bankers Council of the American Bankers Association. He currently sits on the Board of the St. Patrick’s Parade Foundation, NYC and is a Knight of St. Patrick, which both support the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Mr. Murphy is a graduate of the University of Denver with a BSBA. He also holds a Masters of Science in Real Estate Finance from New York University.

Mr. Murphy provides the Company with extensive banking knowledge and particularly with respect to the New York markets.

Steven M. Scopellite was appointed to the Board of Directors in June 2019. Mr. Scopellite retired from Goldman Sachs in 2013, having served as Global Chief Information Officer. Among his accomplishments during his distinguished career of nearly 30 years were leading Goldman Sachs' penetration into new markets, pioneering the bank’s expansion into electronic trading, and developing the global funding platform. Mr. Scopellite currently serves as a Director of Soltage, LLC, a leading renewable energy provider; a Director at Ionic Security, a secure platform to protect and control data; and is Co-Founder and Advisor to Aspec Scire, a groundbreaking drone-data analytics company

Mr. Scopellite is on the Dean’s Executive Advisory Council for the College of Computing and Informatics at Drexel University and Chairman to the Riverview Medical Center Foundation Board of Trustees. Mr. Scopellite provides the Board with significant management and risk management experience, particularly as they relate to information technology.

Grace C. Torres has been a Trustee of Prudential Retail Mutual Funds, a retail mutual funds complex of more than 90 mutual funds, since 2014. Prior to that, Ms. Torres was Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer of Prudential Mutual Funds and Senior Vice President of Prudential Investments LLC from 1994 through 2014. Ms. Torres also previously served as Vice President, Mutual Funds Administration at Bankers Trust and as a Senior Manager, Audit Practice with Ernst & Young. Ms. Torres is a CPA in the State of New York and received a BS in Accounting and Management from New York University. Ms. Torres served as a Director of Sun Bancorp, Inc. and Sun National Bank since 2015, serving on the Audit, Nominating & Corporate Governance and Risk Committees and Chair of the ALCO Committee, until their acquisition by the Company in January 2018, at which time Ms. Torres joined the Board.

Ms. Torres brings to the Board additional financial reporting and audit experience, particularly with respect to large complex financial services organizations. Ms. Torres has been recognized as one the Top 50 business executives by Hispanic Business magazine and LATINA Style Magazine and brings in-depth experience and expertise regarding the financial industry.

Patricia L. Turner r was appointed to the Board of Directors on September 24, 2020 and is the director of the Division of Member Services at the American College of Surgeons and a clinical associate professor at the University of Chicago Medicine. Prior to joining the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Turner spent eight years in full-time academic practice on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, serving as the surgery residency program director. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University and received her MBA from the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Dr. Turner currently serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Dr. Tuner provides the Board with significant leadership and managerial experience related to medical, business, and higher education industries.

John E. Walsh is a licensed engineer who retired from full time employment with T&M Associates in July 2020. He currently remains as a Senior Vice President at the firm in a consulting capacity. He joined T&M Associates in 2010 and served as a Senior Executive Partner and then a member of the Board of Directors until his retirement. T&M Associates is a privately owned engineering, planning and environmental consulting company with sixteen offices in seven states. Before joining T&M Associates, he served in various management capacities with CMX Engineering, Inc., a privately owned engineering company, from 2001 to 2010. At CMX, Mr. Walsh was responsible for all operational aspects of the business, including operational profitability and oversight of 380 professional engineers and technical staff. Prior to joining CMX Engineering, he was President and CEO of Bay Pointe Engineering Associates, Inc., a firm he founded in 1987.

Mr. Walsh’s experience with T&M and CMX provides the Board with management and leadership skills, as well as extensive knowledge of business and marketing plans, annual budgets, personnel/resource management, sales initiatives, financial reporting and client management.