Before attending the University of Louisiana and receiving a degree in finance, Ben Marmande was born and raised in Houma. He later completed his MBA at Loyola while working for Hibernia Bank. After 11 years at Hibernia, he left to become CFO/COO of Racom Technologies. Racom experienced tremendous growth—quadrupling in four years—before Marmande engineered their sale to Lason Technologies, where he stayed on for a few years. After Hurricane Katrina, Marmande moved to New Orleans to work as president of New Orleans Fine Hotels in an effort to rebuild the company. However, the job was not a good fit and Marmande returned to finance to join IberiaBank, where he’s now executive vice president and senior credit officer. Check out the full Q&A here. Here’s a sample:
You’ve spent most of your career working in Louisiana and, more broadly, the South. What have you learned over that time and how has the region changed?
“I traveled a tremendous amount while I was with Racom, and I learned that we live in a great place with great people. We have the best food on the planet, and people work and play hard. While the migration of some jobs to places like Houston have been a disappointment, I have seen our communities and institutions advance. I am concerned about the coastal erosion that I have witnessed, knowing that my life is a geological nanosecond. I believe our universities have also progressed and government leadership seems to have improved, which makes me consequently very bullish on the future of the Louisiana and the South.”
