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United’s Market President celebrates 10 years with the Bank this Fall

Eric Morales’ ties to Maryland’s Montgomery County run deep.

A Brookeville, Maryland, native, Morales has only ever called the DMV area home apart from five years of undergrad and grad school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In fact, after receiving a Master of Accounting from UNC, he decided to return home to launch his career in finance in the Nation’s Capital.

Morales spent the first three years of his career at Ernst & Young as a senior assurance associate, serving as an auditor primarily for real estate clients. However, while he found that he had a passion for finance and the real estate industry, he didn’t necessarily enjoy the work of a public accountant. So, he made the career pivot to a financial and asset management role at Tier REIT, Inc., a real estate investment trust headquartered in Dallas, working on their portfolio in D.C. This time, although he enjoyed the work at Tier REIT, when he was tapped to leave the DMV and relocate to Dallas a little over a year later, he decided to resume his job search for an opportunity closer to home. That was when he was approached by United Bank.

Morales’ strong real estate background and accounting knowledge proved valuable in his new role as portfolio manager. He was praised for his work ethic and willingness to raise his hand and take on new tasks, which would lead to several promotions and new appointments throughout his career. After less than two years at the Bank, he was promoted to commercial banking officer; he earned an assistant vice president title the following year; he was named vice president a year after that; and he was finally promoted to market president two years later.

During his nearly four and a half years as market president, Morales has overseen four of the Bank’s markets, beginning with Fairfax East – one of United’s largest and most well-established areas. About a year into taking on this role, he was chosen to run another of the Bank’s Northern Virginia businesses, the Arlington and Alexandria Market. However, when the Bank repositioned its Bethesda Chevy Chase Market a year later to focus on the burgeoning Montgomery County region, Morales was hand-picked to lead the charge and help grow United’s presence in his hometown. By the beginning of 2024, he’d transitioned from the Arlington and Alexandria Market to focus on the Bethesda Chevy Chase area, as well as his existing Fairfax East Market President role.

In his 10th year with United Bank, Morales was once again tapped to lend his leadership capabilities to a new market. In September 2025, United consolidated its Suburban Maryland business with its Bethesda Chevy Chase Market, establishing the Bank’s Maryland Market under Morales’ tutelage. Today, he leads United Bank’s Fairfax East and Maryland Markets, overseeing 18 offices and nearly 120 employees.

Q&A with Eric Morales, United Bank Fairfax East and Maryland Market President

As a United Bank Market President, you’ve overseen four different markets, some concurrently. That’s quite an impressive resume. Are there any leadership traits that you believe have made you the right person for the job?

Obviously, when I picked up a second market, efficiency mattered most. I had to learn how to be more efficient with my time in order to keep two separate businesses running. This meant that choosing my team was equally as important as the work I was doing.

From a leadership standpoint, one of the best things you can do is to invest in your people. I put a lot of trust in my team and empower them to make their own decisions and come to me with recommendations. I don’t need to be an overbearing leader. If I need to get in the weeds of a project, I will, but I don’t want to be a micromanager who is in everyone’s business.

For this reason, a lot of my time is spent on staffing-related conversations. I’ve found that the times when my teams are really successful are when I have the right people in the right places. As you continue to progress in your career, you need to be more and more reliant on the people around you, so it’s really important to find people you can trust to get stuff done, because if not, you will be stressed at all hours trying to steer the ship on your own.

Did you always want to work in finance?

As a kid, I wanted to be just like my dad. He’s always worked in accounting and finance, and he has helped grow his current company in different capacities. He’s been the CFO now for about 30 years, but he really has worn a number of hats. But what really stood out to me was how he was able to not only take his work life seriously, but also how he always took his family life seriously. So, I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew that if I followed in his footsteps and lived a life like his, that it would probably lead me to something that I enjoyed. And that has pretty much guided me to where I am today.

You speak very highly of your father. Were your parents a big influence on your career and life choices?

My parents are amazing. They are both of Cuban descent and had significantly more struggles than I did growing up. My father left Cuba and moved to Madrid when he was only 10 years old, and he wasn’t much older when he came to the U.S. on his own. He grew up with very little in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is where he met my mom, whose family also immigrated from Cuba before she was born. And although they had tough upbringings, they always had such good attitudes and a great outlook on life.I often struggle with whether I’m doing enough when I compare my situation to theirs. But at the same time, this motivates me to work harder and do better so that I never have to struggle like they did and so my future children will be in an even better position than I’m in today. My dad did so much with so little. He created a life for himself here, put himself through college, found career success, and took care of his family. It’s going to be tough to live up to all that he’s accomplished, but I know that if I put that same amount of hard work and care into what I do and the people around me, I will hopefully at least have lived up to my own potential.

So, of all your accomplishments, what would you say you are most proud of?

Marrying my beautiful wife, Catherine, is easily number one on my list! We’ve been together for eight years, and I can’t imagine life without her. In terms of work, I’d have to say my overall career advancement is what I’m most proud of. I am extremely grateful to be in a position where I can help influence and provide guidance to so many people and have a tangible impact on the company, but it also feels good to have that work recognized. As I mentioned, I can become so focused on striving for more and making my parents and those around me proud that I sometimes don’t give myself the space to recognize all that I have already accomplished. So, when opportunities for recognition like job promotions and my 40 Under 40 win come up, it allows me to take a step back and see that all my hard work is paying off and that I’m on the right path towards accomplishing all that I set out to do.

You just celebrated 10 years with United Bank in September. Looking back, is there any advice that you would give younger Eric or other young people in the beginning stages of their careers?

I’d probably tell young Eric to be patient. I always wanted more – I mean, I still want more, I think everyone does – but you have to trust the process. You can’t expect to cut corners and still find a way to the destination you’re looking for. Looking back, I realized that learning over advancement is the backbone to the early part of your career. I took the time to learn these vital skills for my career that have helped me exponentially later down the line. All in all, if you work hard and do the right thing, things are going to work out in the end.

Eric Morales and his wife Catherine at the WBJ 40 Under 40 Awards