Cynthia L. Blankenship

Cynthia L. Blankenship is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council.

Blankenship serves as vice chairman and corporate president of Bank of the West. She is a past chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), the only national trade association that exclusively represents community banks. She has been the chair of the ICBA’s national association and served on numerous committees there. She also served on the FDIC’s Community Banking Advisory Board for six years. Blankenship currently sits on the Grapevine Convention and Visitors Bureau board of directors.

Blankenship has testified many times on Capitol Hill before the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. She was the first woman to be elected chairman of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas and chaired its Education Foundation, which raised more than $1 million for financial literacy. Blankenship was appointed Dean for Bankers and chaired the Southwestern School of Banking Foundation at Southern Methodist University (SMU). In 2009, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking—SMU Cox School of Business. She was inducted into the Sam Houston University Texas Banker Hall of Fame in April 2019.

She attended the Texas Tech School of Banking and was a member of the Texas Tech School of Banking Advisory Board.