When Don Johnson retired from public accounting in 2019, two Minnesota community bankers were, lickety-split, at his door inviting him to join their boards as an outside director. But Johnson was resolute about taking a break from the industry he’d served for 31 years. Though he was 56 and hearing comments that he was “a little young” to be retiring, Johnson and his wife, Wendy, wanted to travel and try new things. [Continue]
There was a day when customers were willing to wait a week or more to get a face-to-face appointment with an investment advisor. Those days, well, “they’re over,” said Joe Salomone, vice president of Bankers’ Wealth Management, a division of Madison, Wis.-based Bankers’ Bank, which recently announced the release of a digital platform through which community banks can provide “on demand” investment advice. [Continue]
Have you gotten weary of people advising you to master social media? I get it. I often shake my head in disbelief at the fatuous comments I find in my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds. I do accept, however, that just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s not important. (Exercise comes to mind.) You need to engage on social media because that’s where the customers are. [Continue]
Insanity, the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Finding talent these days requires a new approach, says Clement Marriott, president and founder of Minnesota-based Empowers Staffing. This is especially true for community bankers who are committed to fostering the cultural values of diversity, equity and inclusion. Culture is a selling point, Marriott explained. Candidates, especially candidates of color, assess a bank’s culture from the outside: They look at its “About Us” web page, review its social media feeds, and scroll its list of executives found on LinkedIn. [Continue]
I was cleaning out a corner of my basement the other day and came upon a stack of newspapers among my late mother’s things. The papers were yellowed and fraying but their headlines still screamed of our shared national history: “Kennedy Assassinated; U.S. Puts 1st Men On Moon; Nixon Resigns.” [Continue]
The 340 employees of First Western Bank & Trust likely will not use the term “acquisition” to describe how their bank leapt from roughly $1.1 billion at the beginning of 2020 to $1.85 billion by year’s end once it had absorbed Fargo, N.D.-based BlackRidgeBANK. The preferred term — according to Brenda K. Foster, leader of Minot, N.D.-based First Western Bank & Trust — is “merger.” [Continue]
I have a close friend whose parents both have late stage cancer. In short order, questions about caregivers and safe housing, and how to pay for it, landed in my friend’s lap. She and I spoke while she prepared to temporarily move to her parent’s small Iowa town so she could manage the logistics. I was a bit troubled, therefore, when I stumbled upon a survey that revealed that 31 percent of financial caregivers said their bankers were indifferent to their needs, while 22 percent were disappointed with the support they received from their banks. [Continue]
Buying and selling activity in banking was chugging along through February of 2020. The number of sellers was manageable, said David Stieber, an investment banker with Oak Ridge Financial, Minneapolis, and that created “a really good environment to feed bank M&A.” And just as life on earth as we knew it came to a screeching halt in March 2020, so too did bank M&A. [Continue]
I’ve heard some people grumble that 2021 (like the year that preceded it) is a year best forgotten. I’ve always been a reflective sort though, more apt to pause and look backward before moving into the unknown. It’s true, 2021 came steeped in challenges. But as I reflect on the stories from banking we published this year, I also find hope. [Continue]
Numbers often tell a story. At First Interstate Bank, for instance, women compose 72 percent of the bank’s 2,483-person workforce; 62 percent of the bank’s managers are female; more than half of the 22-member senior leadership team is female, and four women serve on the board of the Billings, Mont.-based bank. Three women — CFO Marcy Mutch, Chief Operating Officer Jodi Delahunt Hubbell, and Chief Human Resources Officer Rachel Turitto — sit on the bank’s nine-person executive team; another three — Lorrie Asker, Jocelyn Lane and Tawnie Nelson — serve as regional presidents, collectively overseeing 1,378 people spread across the $18.4 billion bank’s six-state footprint. [Continue]