As a banking industry executive, Allen Gula Jr. has followed the plight of Synovus Financial Corp. through the years. He knows they’ve struggled mightily with loan losses, an anemic stock price and speculation of being acquired by another bank.

Gula, who goes by “Al,” is very familiar with the process of takeovers, having helped his old employer, KeyCorp, buy out a number of banks back in the 1980s and 1990s. His last company, Greater Bay Bancorp in the San Francisco area, was gobbled up by Wells Fargo in 2007.

On Monday, his first day as Synovus chief operations officer, Gula insisted a merger or acquisition is the furthest thing from his mind. He instead will focus on using his technology expertise to position the regional banking firm for growth once it does become profitable again.

“First of all, I didn’t move 1,500 miles to help them get bought,” Gula said in an interview. “I came here because I’m excited about the prospects and opportunities of expansion ... I was really brought in to help (Synovus Chief Executive Officer and President Kessel Stelling) with taking technology and operations to the next level and looking at the strategies and how we can grow the company. That’s what really excited me.”

Gula will report directly to Stelling, one of a half-dozen Synovus executives who now do the same. The former “chief operating officer” position once held by Stelling will not be filled, company spokeswoman Alison Dowe said.

A three-decade veteran of the financial services sector, Gula, 56, most recently served as chief information officer of Greater Bay Bancorp before leaving as part of the Wells Fargo buyout at the end of 2007.

Before that, he was co-president of Franklin Resources, a management firm also based in the San Francisco area and perhaps best known for its advertised subsidiary, Franklin Templeton Investments.

Jobs earlier in his career include executive vice president with Cleveland, Ohio-based bankholding firm KeyCorp, as well as chairman and chief executive officer of Key Services.

“We are pleased to have a leader with Al’s experience and reputation join our company at this important time,” Stelling said in a statement. “His diverse background and broad perspective of the financial services industry will be invaluable to our company as we continue to become a more efficient, value-generating company that is committed to relationship-based banking.”

The executive joins Synovus, a bank with $29 million in assets and offices in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. The company has been battling through one of the most difficult financial periods in its history, having posted 11 straight quarterly losses and two restructurings in which 2,000 jobs have been cut from its work force.

The bank’s losses mounted amid the national financial crisis that began in 2007 and worsened as the Great Recession deepened over the next two years. The losses stem primarily from loans made to residential developers who were caught up in the U.S. housing implosion, with Synovus particularly hurt along the coastal areas of Florida and in metro Atlanta. The firm also lost money loaned to Sea Island Co., a coastal Georgia resort company that eventually filed for bankruptcy protection, then was sold to private investors.

“Synovus is an example of what all banks have been through at one level or another, but I think it’s pretty impressive what Synovus has been able to accomplish in some very difficult times,” said Gula, who has been given the mission of leveraging the company’s technology to make it more efficient and scale its operations into a single, customer-friendly platform. Improvements could range from expanded branch and ATM capabilities to a single call center that provides better and faster service, he said.

“Obviously, we’ve got to finish the job with getting out from under TARP and things like that,” Gula said of the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, to which Synovus still owes $968 million. “But I think there’s a real opportunity here, so now’s the time to begin positioning the company so that we can scale it as we look at not only growing, but expanding product delivery and capabilities.”

Gula’s hiring follows the departure of two top executives over the last two years.

First was the sudden resignation in May 2009 of Fred Green, the company’s president and chief operating officer, titles he had held since 2006. He had been with the company since 1995. No explanation was given by the company for his exit.

Stelling became president and chief operating officer of Synovus in February 2010, then was promoted to CEO of the banking firm last fall after Richard Anthony relinquished that position after a severe illness, but retained a non-executive chairman title. Stelling kept the position of president as well. Earlier this year, Synovus also lost its chief people officer and chief information officer with the retirement of Elizabeth “Lee Lee” James, just as the firm was unveiling its second round of expense cuts and a downsizing of 850 jobs, a move that was completed within the last couple of months. James had been with the company since 1986.

James’ position will eventually be filled, although there is no timeline for doing so, Gula said Monday.

On the philanthropic side of his life, Gula is chairman and CEO of the Marilyn B. Gula Mountains of Hope Foundation, named in honor of his late wife, Marilyn. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996, founded Mountains of Hope in 2003, and succumbed from the disease on July 26, 2006.

“The foundation is not a fulltime job for me,” he said. “I am going to stay involved. It’s something both my late wife and I are big believers in and hopefully there’ll be a point in time where we can do some fundraising here in the Columbus area.” Gula arrived in Columbus June 29 and has settled into the Maple Ridge golf community with his pooch, Ernie, a schnauzer-poodle mix. He said Columbus is in ways like his hometown of Lorain, Ohio, about 30 miles west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.

“The river that I’m looking at actually reminds me of the river that kind of cuts through Lorain into the lake,” he said Monday while looking out the windows of Synovus’ corporate headquarters overlooking the Chattahoochee. “The only thing I don’t like is the humidity. It’s kind of like Arizona, you’ve got to get through the summer and the rest of it is kind of nice,” he said of Phoenix, where he still owns a home.