Lance Sexton Named Coleman SBA Portfolio Manager of the Year

February 4, 2026

Bob Coleman
Founder & Publisher

Lance Sexton Named Coleman SBA Portfolio Manager of the Year

Lance Sexton is recognized as SBA Portfolio Manager of the Year for his exceptional stewardship of a $320 million and growing SBA portfolio and his decades-long leadership across the full lifecycle of SBA lending—from origination and servicing to workouts, liquidation, and recovery. As EVP and Chief Servicing Officer at Phoenix Lender Services, Lance applies more than 40 years of SBA and commercial banking expertise to protect lender performance, strengthen compliance, and drive disciplined portfolio management at scale. His background includes senior leadership roles at multiple financial institutions, including Deputy Director of the SBA Little Rock Commercial Loan Servicing Center, where he managed servicing operations as well as liquidation activity for SBA Express and SBA 504 loans across a 24-state region—experience that gave him rare, firsthand command of SBA program requirements, documentation standards, guaranty protection, and best practices for resolving distressed credits.

He later brought that expertise into bank leadership as Regional EVP at Bank OZK and SVP of Commercial Lending at Legacy National Bank, and he has served as Vice President, Senior Vice President, and Executive Officer at three community banks, building and managing SBA portfolios while aligning production growth with sound credit governance. Beyond portfolio performance, Lance is widely respected for elevating the industry itself: he is a Coleman Report instructor who trains SBA Participant Lenders, and he brings a strong educator’s mindset to his work as a business professor at the University of the Ozarks and former faculty member of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. With deep technical fluency, seasoned judgment, and a track record that spans both lender-side execution and SBA servicing center leadership, Lance exemplifies the standard of excellence in SBA portfolio management—balancing risk, compliance, and mission-driven outcomes that ultimately support the long-term health of small business lending.