Foundation Forged in Fort Smith

Written By: Ian Silvester

Three months into her 24-month Executive MBA program at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Megan Nichols, ’15, said she knew it was time to take a leap. She was market executive for Regions Bank at the time. 

“I always get this itch whenever I’m comfortable and complacent,” she said. “For my whole career, I knew at some point I was going to be working in Dallas. In terms of exposure, career-wise, the economy there made sense.” 

When she moved to Texas three years ago, it wasn’t to get away from the place she called home for 30 years. It was to chase an opportunity she couldn’t ignore. 

“I do not believe that I would be as successful in Dallas as I am today if it weren’t for getting my foundation built in Fort Smith,” she said. 

Because of Fort Smith, Nichols had climbed the banking ladder. She thrived on overcoming new challenges and gained valuable leadership experience through her crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Now, three years after chasing the career move to Texas, Nichols is all in on an even greater opportunity. Since May 2025, Nichols has served as Senior Vice President and Relationship Manager for U.S. Bank’s Institutional Client Group. 

“Dallas is an expansion market for U.S. Bank,” she said. “I came from a legacy market where Regions (Bank) had a meaningful market share in Fort Smith, to an unknown I’d have to create. I thought, ‘How cool is it to be part of creating something and building market share in Texas?’” 

Nichols, who started as a teller at First National Bank of Fort Smith while a student at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, manages accounts for companies with revenues of $250 million to $1 billion. 

“I have the type of personality where I feel like I can do anything and make my way through it,” Nichols said. “It doesn’t matter how hard or challenging it is, just roll up your sleeves and get it done.” 

While at UAFS, Nichols was a full-time student and worked full-time as a teller, where she fell in love with finance and banking.  

Nichols recalled feeling that the banking career she hoped to build was too good to be true. She didn’t always feel like she belonged, and being among the first generation of family members to attend and graduate from college, that sense of being an imposter was hard to shake. 

Even with more than a decade of leadership and experience backing her, Nichols said it’s a feeling that persists. 

“That’s what drives us,” she said. “I think that feeling never really goes away, but it’s important because as long as you feel it, that means you’re growing, and you’re learning.” 

Nichols knows that the choices she has made and the tenacity she has shown have helped her ascend into leadership. Throughout her career, Nichols said she has often thought back to her foundation in Fort Smith and the female leaders who came before her. 

“It’s been a long time now, but I’ll never forget it,” she said of an answer Judy McReynolds, CEO of ArcBest at the time, once gave her. “Her response was, ‘Megan, me being a female in a male-dominated industry has never been an issue for me because I’ve never made it one.’ That was a perspective I had not yet heard, and one I incorporated into my own career.” 

Banking, Nichols said, is still a male-dominated industry, but she doesn’t look at it through the lens of having a disadvantage because she’s a female. Instead, it’s another chance to scratch the itch to chase opportunity. 

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