People in business

Matt Buuck has joined MidSouth Bank as banking center manager for its new Jones Creek location. He is charge of the day-to-day operations of the center and will work to develop new business throughout the Baton Rouge market. Buuck has more than seven years of experience in the banking industry, having most recently worked as an assistant manager at Capital One.

Heath Hebert has joined MidSouth Bank as commercial lender for the Baton Rouge market.

He works out of the bank’s Sherwood Forest location and is responsible for servicing existing commercial banking relationships and developing new business throughout the Baton Rouge area.

Hebert, who has eight years of banking experience, was previously employed as a commercial underwriter, business banker and credit officer at Bancorp South, Hancock Bank and Campus Federal.

KPMG LLP has announced several promotions. Jennifer Branum was promoted from manager to senior manager in the tax department. Chad Bollinger was promoted from senior associate to manager in the tax department. Jenna Carter was promoted from senior associate to manager in the audit department. Erin Coney was promoted from senior associate to manager in the audit department. Scott Lyon was promoted from senior associate to manager in the audit department.

Dr. Frank Opelka, LSU executive vice president for health care redesign, has been named chairman of the American Medical Association-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.

Opelka, a colorectal surgeon, is a nationally recognized leader in health care quality and an advocate for improving performance and patient safety, said Dr. Jeremy A. Lazarus, AMA president. Opelka’s experience and reputation will be a valuable asset as the consortium continues its work to improve health care quality. The consortium is a national, physician-led program working to improve patient care, performance measurement and quality improvement. The group has 190 member organizations. So far the consortium has helped develop 280 evidence-based performance measures across 46 clinical areas.

The LSU Board of Supervisors appointed Pennington Biomedical researcher Dr. Nikhil V. Dhurandhar as the John Henry Hernandez Endowed Professor in Health Promotion.

Dr. Dhurandhar, a physician who received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Bombay, leads the Infection and Obesity Laboratory at Pennington, working to understand the causes of obesity, specifically cases caused by viral infections. He is also investigating how some beneficial properties of certain viruses could be exploited for treating diabetes. He was recently named as vice president of The Obesity Society for 2012-2013, and is in line to serve as president of the leading scientific organization in the field beginning in 2014.

Karl Landreneau, director of commercial sales and leasing for the Baton Rouge and Lafayette offices of NAI Latter & Blum, will serve as president-elect of the CCIM Institute in 2013 and take office as president in January 2014.

Landreneau is a long-time member of the CCIM instructor faculty and also teaches training courses for CCIM Technologies’ Site To Do Business.

He has been an active leader in the commercial real estate sector for more than 12 years and has been instrumental in developing the Louisiana Commercial Database. The CCIM Institute is one of the largest commercial real estate networks in the world.

LAFAYETTE AREA

Iberiabank has named Bob Kottler, executive vice president and director of retail and small business, chair of the Consumer Bankers Association’s board of directors.

Kottler is responsible for the retail segment across the company’s footprint, including retail operations, credit cards, sales, retail training and small business.

HAMMOND AREA

Southeastern Louisiana University Professor of History Samuel C. Hyde has been elected president of the Gulf South Historical Association.

Hyde, a resident of Denham Springs who holds the Leon Ford Endowed Chair in Regional Studies and director of the university’s Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, was elected at the recent Gulf South History and Humanities Conference.