Giovana Helen Pereira

Helen has built a following as a trusted adviser to businesses, families, and organizations through her ability to listen carefully to their needs and concerns and gain a deep understanding of their circumstances and goals. Fully bilingual in English and Spanish, works with a diverse clientele. She believes selecting a banker is a critical decision for clients and she is humbled by the trust clients place in her. She strives to honor their choice with service and guidance that will help clients preserve, grow, and transfer their hard-earned wealth and resources effectively and efficiently.

Helen brings a disciplined yet personalized approach to each unique client situation, drawing on skills she has developed over more than 25 years in banking in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. She advises clients on all financial facets of business development, including startup, cash management, merchant processing, borrowing needs, and exit strategy. She spent a significant part of her career as a small business lender, and her comprehensive understanding of the loan underwriting process makes her a valuable partner to clients who are seeking to build, increase, or utilize credit.

Before joining MainStreet Bank in 2022, Helen spent her career with banks that evolved into a Top 10 U.S. banking company through a series of acquisitions. She started in 1995 as a branch manager at First Virginia Bank, a large community bank. She graduated from the bank’s well-regarded management training program and cultivated her lending experience there. After the bank was acquired in 2003 by BB&T, she became a market leader specializing in helping small businesses and consumers meet their needs for loans and other banking services, a role she continued as a Vice President after BB&T acquired SunTrust Banks in a 2019 “merger of equals.”

Helen grew up in Fairfax County and earned a degree in sociology from George Mason University, which she has found extremely valuable and relevant in the relationship-focused world of banking. She is proud of her Bolivian heritage and spent a decade working and performing with various Bolivian folklore, dance, and music programs.