Southern Bancorp Inc. of Little Rock said Thursday that it had hired Andrea Parnell as its new senior vice president and director of human resources.

In the role, Parnell will oversee the human resource functions for SBI, Southern Bancorp Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI; and Southern Bancorp Community Partners, a non-profit affiliate of SBI. According to Southern, Parnell has nearly two decades of human resource management experience. Before joining Southern, she was the director of employee relations for Allied Wireless Communications Corp