At Infinity Bank, President and Chief Operating Officer Victor Guerrero is always willing to go the extra mile for customers—even if it means hopping on a plane and traveling across the country to help a client in a financial dilemma.
“We show up in person every time,” he told the Business Journal.
It’s that kind of support and personal service that gives the Santa Ana-based community bank its edge, says Guerrero, who shares his personal cell phone number with the bank’s more than 1,000 customers.
The 37-year tenured banker says “nothing matters more” when it comes to taking care of his customers and employees. That’s been the bank’s mission from the get-go, he said during an interview at Infinity’s Hutton Centre Drive branch.
When Infinity Bank opened in 2018, it was the ninth new bank to open in the U.S. since the 2008 financial crisis. At the time, it had raised $33 million in capital, exceeding a $30 million target.
It is now the No. 12-ranked bank based in Orange County, with assets of $337.1 million as of June 30, up 9.3% from the previous full year, according to Business Journal data.
A Love for Suits
Guerrero, 54, says he knew at age 10 that he wanted a career in banking after his aunt, who worked at Bank of America, opened a savings account for him in the 1970s.
She deposited $25.
“I thought I was rich.”
Walking into the bank with his “passbook,” he grew even more impressed.
“Everybody is wearing a suit,” he said, recalling that moment. “I want to work at a place where I get to dress up like that.”
At age 17, he started his bank career as a teller at Bank of America in 1988. He moved on to other large banks, First Interstate Bank and Security Pacific National Bank, where he worked in sales before becoming a credit analyst. After Security Pacific was acquired by Bank of America, he and other bankers found themselves out of jobs. Bank of America offered him a role in real estate lending, but that didn’t appeal to the 21-year-old.
Then, a serendipitous moment happened.
While in the unemployment line, his father-in-law ran into another out-of-work banker, Fred Jones. Turns out Jones was an HR executive at Security Pacific who had been let go during the merger. After learning about the young Guerrero, Jones and he met—a chance encounter that would change his career trajectory forever. He taught Guerrero how to network and encouraged him to get into community banking.
“You need to work at a bank that’s smaller,” he told him. “You should work at a bank where you get to know the CEO—that is your best shot at getting experience, because at a large bank, you’ll never get to experience some of the things that you would at a small bank.”
Guerrero took his advice and got a job supervising loan documents and loan payments at Southern California Bank in Downey.
“And that’s where I got my start in community banking. I haven’t left,” he said.
Bankers Hours a Myth?
It was 1992, and Guerrero found himself working day and night.
“During a recession, the bank had to lay off so many people,” he said of the economic struggles of the early 1990s. “I was working seven days a week, holidays. And it was, it was crazy.”
His manager at Southern California Bank told him that this is how banks operate now.
“And I thought that can’t be true, so I went and found another job at a bank up in LA (Industrial Bank) whose only claim to fame was that Chick Hearn banked there,” he said of the late play-by-play announcer for the Lakers.
But while the hours were better, the daily commute from Orange County to Van Nuys took its toll.
He took a job as a financial analyst at Pacific National Bank in 1995—a jump to finance after years on the loans and operations side. “I fell in love with it.”
A year later he was promoted to assistant controller, and then controller in 1998. That bank sold, and Guerrero found himself looking for work again.
He soon landed his first executive role. A recent California State University, Fullerton graduate—who had spent nights and weekends earning his finance degree—Guerrero was named chief financial officer at South Bay Bank in 1999. He was 29 years old.
“The CEO took a chance on me,” he said.
Infinity Bank – a ‘Legacy of Caring’
Once South Bay Bank sold, Guerrero’s next move: founding CFO of Orange County Business Bank in 2002.
He spent 14 years there before it was sold in 2016. Around that time, Bala Balkrishna, previously chief executive of Commercial Bank of California, came out of retirement to launch Infinity Bank.
He took Guerrero out to lunch and asked him to join him.
Initially, he told Balkrishna no.
“I’m never doing that again,” the father of two said. “You’re working until 3 a.m. mostly seven days a week, because there’s nobody else to do the work except you. I’m not afraid of hard work, but that’s a lot, and I wasn’t 31 anymore.”
But, Balkrishna, CEO of Infinity Bank, changed Guerrero’s mind by appealing to his ethos.
He told him he wanted to open a bank that was focused on serving people, employees, customers and “creating a legacy of caring.”
“That aligns very well with my values,” Guerrero said.
When Infinity Bank opened in 2018, Guerrero was executive vice president, COO and CFO. It was the second bank to open in Orange County in about a year since the 2008 financial crisis.
Infinity Bank has since grown from about 10 employees to 36. Net income of $2.7 million for the six months ended June 30, was up 26% compared to the same period in 2024.
Guerrero, promoted to president in 2020, says launching community banks has given him “empathy for entrepreneurs.”
“They’re trying to survive, but they’re also trying to do 10 million other things, other than just turn a profit,” he said.
That’s why he takes a hands-on approach, giving his personal cell phone number to Infinity’s clients. Core customers are business owners that run large multi-billion companies to small mom-and-pops. Executives from those companies, as well as doctors and lawyers living primarily in Orange and Los Angeles counties, also bank at Infinity.
Though each customer has different needs, they all have one thing in common.
“Every customer has my cell phone. And I’ve met every customer in the bank,” Guerrero says.
He says clients call him for all sorts of reasons—from requesting an urgent wire transfer to figuring out how to make payroll after a large receivable didn’t come in.
Some situations are more desperate, like the client who had his wallet stolen while traveling in Florida, prompting Guerrero to consider flying across the country to help.
“He had nothing except his phone,” Guerrero said.
With no cash, the panicked customer told him: “I’m stuck here.”
Guerrero responded instantly: “Why don’t I get on an airplane, and I’ll bring you cash right now.”
The grateful customer said, “You would do that?”
The bank veteran responded on instinct: “Of course I would.”
He said this is what Infinity Bank does for its customers. “If you’re on the other side of the country, we’ll get on a plane right now and bring you cash.”
He ended up overnighting a credit card to the client.
The deeply faithful Christian says he’s been blessed at every turn in his career.
“By the grace of God, frankly, I have gotten anything in life.”
As for wearing a suit every day, Guerrero still enjoys it, though nowadays he skips the tie, calling it “too stuffy” for most of his customers.
Still, the soft-spoken executive grows nostalgic thinking back to his first bank visit. He smiles and admits softly: “I do miss wearing a tie.”
Social Media Humor Attracts Top Talent
Infinity Bank President Victor Guerrero and his team have found a fun way to show off the bank’s culture—through playful videos that make banking feel personal.
One video, shared on TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, featured a paper-airplane-throwing contest at the Santa Ana branch. Others, however, often take aim at the suit-loving executive himself.
The latest reel stars a “fun size version of Victor” talking about fraud safety. The toddler-looking Guerrero, dressed in a blue suit and white dress shirt with no tie, is reminiscent of the original E-Trade talking baby commercials.
“We can help stop that fraud,” curly-haired baby Guerrero says—but with an adult voice.
Another video jokes about the value of Guerrero’s cell phone set to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” hit song.
“There’s money. There’s gold. Then there’s Victor’s phone number—arguably more valuable,” Infinity Bank writes on its LinkedIn page.
In the clip, a staffer shows how she lists Guerrero’s name in her contacts—“V-15 Mins or Less.”
“Every time you call him and he doesn’t answer, you get an automated text that says, ‘I’ll call you in 15 minutes or less,’” the employee says.
She is referring to his philosophy on returning calls promptly.
Guerrero says the automated prompts give “people peace of mind.”
The bank’s social media presence started about five years ago during COVID-19 with four or five employees participating. Now almost everyone wants screentime in the videos, even vendors.
The videos, now produced with help from a professional third-party team, have grown into a lively showcase of the bank’s people and culture.
While the content isn’t designed to attract new clients, Guerrero says it’s become a strong employee recruiting tool.
Job candidates, he says, see the team laughing and having a good time—like a scene from the “The Office”—and that makes them “want to be part of that culture.”
—Nancy Luna
