Margaret Ference
Senior Vice President and the Small Business and SBA Director
Huntington National Bank
Maggie is a Senior Vice President and the Regional Bank Director of Credit Operations & SBA for Huntington National Bank, a $183 Billion Dollar Regional Bank based out of Columbus, Ohio. With a background in financial underwriting, commercial closing and due diligence, and SBA Program Eligibility, Maggie has built a career specializing in business lending and is very active as a small business advocate in the communities that Huntington serves.
Maggie is currently serving as the regional bank’s business credit and operations director, overseeing a team of 500+ colleagues Nationwide, with a focus on making and servicing loans from $1,000 - $25 Million in size, throughout the entire small business life cycle beginning at start-up and continuing through $50 Million in revenue size. Working with start-ups on business plans, helping small businesses expand into commercial companies, finding aging owners a generational solution for the sale of their business, and even helping those customers who fall on hard times, small business lending solutions are her passion. As the Director of the SBA Lending Program at Huntington, Maggie is pleased to celebrate that for the 15th consecutive year, Huntington is the #1 SBA 7(a) lender in its now eleven-state region and was #1 in number of loans Nationally for 2023, for the 6th year in a row.
As a member of NAGGL and several small business associations, Maggie works closely with private and public segment leaders nationwide to communicate Huntington’s mission for small business. She is the business representative on the bank’s ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) Board, focusing on Huntington’s impact on our customers, colleagues, and community. Maggie is also a member of Huntington’s National Community Advisory Council, where she works with community leaders across the Midwest to drive bank policies, procedures, and philanthropy to better support the ever-changing neighborhoods where we are based. Maggie is proud to be on Huntington’s Women for Women Leadership team, focused on promoting women in the financial industry.
Maggie earned her BSBA degree from Ohio Dominican University and is a graduate of the CBA Executive School of Banking at Furman University, SC. She was a 40 Under 40 2019 Award winner in Columbus, Ohio, where she resides in with her family. Maggie is on the Board of Directors for ECDI, the nation's most active small business CDFI. She is currently serving as the Vice President of the Development Board at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She is a member of the City of Columbus' Small Business Ecosystem Advisory Committee and is celebrating her 11th year as a rider and fundraiser for Pelotonia, a grassroots bike tour in the fight to end cancer.