WSFS names Levenson next CEO

Rodger Levenson of Greenville, Del., has been promoted effective Jan. 1 to chief executive officer of WSFS Financial Corp., one of the largest Philadelphia-area banks with 70 branches and $7 billion in loans and other assets in southeast Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Levenson, currently executive vice president and chief operating officer, was previously CFO and head of commercial banking at WSFS. He will replace his boss, Mark Turner of Chadds Ford, who has run the bank since 2007. Turner will become executive chairman.

A Temple graduate with a Drexel MBA, Levenson in 1986 joined CoreStates (Philadelphia National) Bank and its successors, now part of Wells Fargo, where he was managing director of retail and apparel banking. He worked from 2003-06 at Citizens Bank, then joined WSFS. He will be the 13th president in WSFS' 186-year history.

Once a depositor-owned savings bank like its long-ago model, the former Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, WSFS is now one of the Philadelphia area's most valuable bank stocks, with a market capitalization of $1.7 billion. Under Turner, the bank completed eight acquisitions in its drive to convince investors it can win market share from the big national banks that dominate Philadelphia-area lending, and boost profits, in order to keep from getting bought.

Turner, a native of Philadelphia's Logan section, took over from Marvin "Skip" Schoenhals on the eve of the last recession, which forced the sale of Wilmington Trust Corp., Wachovia Corp., and other larger competitors. Turner kept WSFS independent by continuing Schoenhals' tight commercial credit policy, boosting the share value by 1,700 percent from its low in 2009.