Culture club.

• Author: Mildenberg, David
• Position: NC TREND: Triad Region - BB&T Asset Management L.L.C. promoted three executives

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Many companies talk about the importance of culture. And then there's BB&T. The Winston-Salem-based bank promoted three executives to its management team in early July who share the same characteristics as virtually every other group member: They are BB&T lifers.

Jim Godwin, 48, will assist the bank's chief risk officer, while Brant Standridge, 40, will oversee specialty lending groups, including car dealers, commercial real estate and customers with poor credit ratings. And Donta Wilson, 40, has a new title--chief client experience officer--which means he is supposed to boost sales and client service while overseeing advertising, marketing and public relations. Each joined the bank in the mid- or late 1990s.

That makes them newbies compared with most of the other 12 members on the team, which is led by CEO Kelly King, a 43-year BB&T veteran. Chief Operating Officer Chris Henson, the most likely successor to King, 67, who has shown no interest in retiring, joined the bank in 1985. The only senior BB&T executives who haven't spent all or most of their careers at the bank are Chief Financial Officer Daryl Bible and General Counsel Robert Johnson Jr., who joined in 2008 and 2005, respectively.

Few if any other Fortune 500...