Nathan S. Harris and Benjamin Katz have joined Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP as partners in the Nashville office.

Harris is a member of Bradley’s Corporate & Securities Practice Group and works with clients throughout the entire business lifecycle. He assists with entity formation, provides guidance on commercial transactions and fundraising and advises buyers and sellers in connection with complex M&A transactions.

He earned his J.D. and his undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky.

Katz is a fintech attorney in the firm’s Litigation and Banking and Financial Services practice groups and serves as an adviser and outside general counsel to companies in the electronic payments industry. He also represents clients in complex bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings across the country with a particular focus on helping automotive industry clients in bankruptcy and restructuring matters, including those involving supply chain crises that threaten production.

Katz earned his J.D. from the Emory University School of Law and is a graduate of the University of Georgia.

Bradley’s Nashville office has added more than 20 attorneys during the past 12 months. Bradley is the city’s third-largest law firm with more than 160 attorneys.

Franklin selects Borne for municipal court judge

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen has approved the hiring of Jessica Borne as municipal court judge. Borne will preside over city ordinance, building code and traffic violations.

Borne was chosen from 19 candidates. Judge Deana Hood served in the position for eight years and recently was elected to circuit court judge.

Borne is employed by Fort, Holloway & Rogers. She previously spent 12 years with the Tennessee Office of the District Attorney General 21st Judicial District, serving Williamson, Lewis, Hickman and Perry counties. She has dedicated the last 10 years of her career working with domestic abuse victims and their families by prosecuting and trying criminal cases involving domestic partners.

Borne has worked with Bridges Domestic Violence Shelter and conducted trainings with community agencies educating on domestic violence issues. She also has served on the Veteran’s Treatment Court Team, Sexual Assault Response Team, Domestic Violence Task Force and Domestic Violence Community Coordinated Response Team during her career at the district attorney’s office. She is on the board for the Davis House Child Advocacy Center and Bridges Domestic Violence Center.

She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice from MTSU. She earned her J.D. from the Nashville School of Law in 2011.

Cooley Public Strategies names vice president

A veteran Missouri political strategist and former longtime Associated Press journalist has been named vice president of Cooley Public Strategies.

Alan Zagier joins CPS from Tightline Public Affairs in St. Louis where as a principal since 2019. He worked on issues advocacy and campaigns ranging from education and health care to land use and state and local initiative petition ballot measures.

At CPS, Zagier will help oversee the firm’s full portfolio of clients while leading and executing community engagement projects and driving comprehensive media and digital communications campaigns.

A Baltimore native, Zagier spent more than 20 years in daily journalism, including a decade-plus with the AP and for news organizations in Florida, North Carolina and Washington, D.C.

Zagier also is a former visiting professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and worked as a senior communications manager at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he earned an MBA.

LifePoint promotes Bowman to sr. VP of physician services

LifePoint Health has promoted Monica Bowman to senior vice president, physician services, for the organization. Bowman will continue overseeing the operations of LifePoint’s provider practices and clinics while also assuming responsibility for all provider recruitment efforts across the enterprise.

She will also continue leading teams that support ambulatory operations, including electronic medical records optimization, revenue cycle management, payer enrollment and quality performance in the ambulatory practices.

Bowman formerly served LifePoint as vice president, physician services.

Before joining the company in 2018, she held a number of ambulatory operations leadership roles with other health systems, including serving as vice president of physician services for RCCH HealthCare Partners; vice president of physician services for Vanguard Health Systems for 14 years and as vice president and chief executive officer for the Florida and Central States Regions for Tenet Physician Services.

Buffkin / Baker names adds principal in Franklin

Buffkin / Baker, a partner-led executive search firm, has added Marcia Rice as principal with the responsibility for creating value in the firm’s health care practice, serving health systems, AAMC institutions, not-for-profit and for-profit hospital and medical groups with physician executive and health care executive searches.

Rice will be based in the firm’s Brentwood office.

With more than 11 years of experience in recruiting, Rice was previously a physician recruiter for Ascension Saint Thomas, recruiting hundreds of physicians to Middle Tennessee.

Rice has held various executive roles with the Tennessee Medical Association Alliance for 26 years, serving as state president in 2000. She has served on the boards of the Tennessee Medical Education Fund, the Tennessee Medical Foundation’s physicians health peer review committee and on the advisory board for One Generation Away, a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate food insecurity.

Rice is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and holds a master’s degree in early childhood education from Tennessee Tech.

Sonata Bank names Bontrager president

Sonata Bank has named Wendell Bontrager president and chief lending officer. Bontrager brings three decades of banking experience ranging from a de novo bank to a multistate financial institution with $4 billion in assets.

His experience includes strategic revenue initiatives for privately held businesses in the payment technology industry, managing turnarounds and restructuring, and merger integrations, leading seven acquisitions in two years. He most recently served as president and board member of Wichita, Kansas-based Equity Bank.

Sonata opened its Brentwood deposit and loan production office in early August. A full-service banking center will open in the fall. While the first stage for Sonata is its focus on community banking providing commercial banking services for small to medium sized businesses in Middle Tennessee, bank leaders plan to launch a national strategy focused on the quick service and fast casual restaurant industry in the second quarter of 2023.

In addition to Dellinger and board chair Farzin Ferdowsi, Bontrager, serves on the boards of Sonata Bank and its holding company, Sonata Financial Holdings, Inc.

Other Sonata Financial Holdings board members include Afshin Yazdian, CEO of Paysafe; Hall Capital Chief Investment Officer Will Alexander; JAKK Media Managing Director Kenneth Kline; Neal & Harwell Partners Trey Harwell and James Kelley; Silmar Company owner Martin Silverman; MRCO partner and vice president Shabnam Aminmadani; Tom Cook, co-founder and CEO of Pacific Bells and CEO of World Wide Wings; Nashville-based entrepreneur Turner Nashe and Dave Brewer, recently retired executive vice president and COO, The Middleby Corporation.

Bourbon Steak Nashville hires new executive chef

Bourbon Steak, located on the 34th floor of JW Marriott Nashville, has promoted chef Dmitriy Kakuschke to executive chef. Kakuschke has served as the executive sous chef of Bourbon Steak for the MINA Group since its opening in 2018.

Kakuschke is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Miami and a previous associate of the Fontainebleau Hotel and Resort in Miami Beach. Following this role, Kakuschke served as a chef de partie and then junior sous chef at JW Marriott Marquis Dubai.

Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Kakuschke grew up in South Florida but has considered Nashville home since 2018 when he moved to Music City to help open Bourbon Steak.

Kakuschke will be replacing Quentin Welch, who joined Bourbon Steak Nashville in 2018 and became executive chef in 2021.

Father Ryan selects Atwood for alumni role

Sara Carter Atwood has been named Father Ryan High School’s alumni engagement and outreach manager.

Atwood, a 2004 Father Ryan High School graduate, was formerly associate director of workplace engagement fundraising for United Way of Greater Nashville. Atwood will share responsibility with the advancement team to organize and coordinate alumni programs and services designed to foster and strengthen the relationship between Father Ryan High School and its alumni.

A native of Nashville, Atwood earned a degree in textiles, merchandising and design at Middle Tennessee State University.

Hermitage welcomes new vice president of collections

Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage has welcomed Pamela A. Miner as its new vice president of collections to oversee the collections, archaeology, reference services and exhibitions at the National Historic Landmark.

Miner joins the organization with a career spanning more than 20 years in historic sites, museum and history education. She is the recipient of the 2017 Florida Book Award Gold Medal in Visual Arts for her River & Road: Fort Myers Architecture from Craftsman to Modern.

Most recently, Miner was with Collier County Museums in Naples, Florida, as a historic preservation and historic site project manager. There, she directed a $250,000 restoration of the 1947 Budd Observation/Tavern Train Car at the Naples Depot Museum and led the design-build for a permanent visitor center exhibit at the Immokalee Pioneer Museum.

She also served as adjunct professor of history at Florida Southwestern State College in Fort Myers. Previous posts include the curator of collections and interpretation for the Edison and Fort Winter Estates in Fort Myers, Florida, records coordinator and archivist for the City of Cape Coral, Florida, and the grants administrator and archivist for the Missouri State Archives and Local Records Preservation Program in Jefferson City, Missouri.

She has a master’s degree in history and historic preservation from the University of Missouri and a bachelor’s degree in history from William Woods University. She fills the position vacated by Marsha Mullin, who retired from the organization after a 35-year career with The Hermitage.