Old National's Jim Ryan on the things that really matter

And he handed me the phone and I quickly scheduled interview while I was in his office. And the rest is really history. I started working for Old Kent Bank my junior year in college and really have not stopped working for a bank since then.

Than the place I was leaving and it was a little bit different than the other opportunities I was looking at. And, and had the opportunity to come join their treasury management section. And I really used that as a, as a point to volunteer to do just about everything in the organization. Take on new assignments, move for the company to, to bring the best of old nationals, a part of, of some future, you know, partnerships that we've done.

And and really just had an amazing opportunity to, to grow in my career, to hopefully add some value along the way. And six years ago, as a part of our planned succession the board asked me to assume chairman and CEO.

Through a partnership a few years back with first Midwest and what we saw in Chicago is really a collection of smaller communities that make up the greater Chicagoland area. And, and similarly, you know we went to Minnesota a number of years back with a, with a couple of partnerships and, and most recently we, we closed, announced and closed in our Bremer partnership. And, and again, I would suggest that is a collection of smaller communities that make up the Twin Cities area.

And, and for us it's really. Partnerships have been a big part of our growth story. But really we're focused in on the organic growth first. And I've often told people, like when, when people ask me like, what's next? You're $70 billion. I would say nothing would make me happier if we were just able to grow in the next five years organically and continue to do the great things that we do. I, 'cause I think we've reached the scale necessary to compete. I believe we have.

Great growth opportunities in the marketplaces we serve. And we just don't need a future partnership. We're not trying to solve anything through a partnership like succession planning. So, having said that, I, I'm realistic to know that I think people will come call at some point in time and say, Hey, what do you think about putting our two organizations together and can we be better together? And, and if that comes, great.

If that doesn't come, absolutely we'll be absolutely fine and just continue to execute organically our strategy. And, and be really happy about that. So for us, you know, again, we start with can our, can our model be successful? And if it can be successful how fast can we grow? Are, are the demographics you know, better? Are we making ourselves better as an organization either through organic growth or, or through future partnerships?

We do these things called Better Together days where we, where we all go out in, in mass over a couple of day period of time to really go out and be super engaged in our communities. And as a result of that we also end up partnering with a lot of organizations from Habitat to Humanity to, to you know, local charities that need our support. And sometimes that comes along with some, some branding opportunities and some sports sponsorships.

And as you referenced by the time this podcast airs we're gonna announce a partnership with Indiana Fever. We're so proud and honored to be associated with a, with a brand like the Indiana Fever, the WNBA has absolutely caught fire. And so this is an amazing opportunity to think about how do we support Indiana teams, but the WNBA in particular. And so we've had a number of those partnerships over the years. We were a partner with the Big 10 and the, as the official banking partner.

And, and I think these are just. Great opportunities to introduce and expose our brand to audiences in, in different kinds of ways and lights. And so we look for those opportunities often and and sometimes they change over time, but we're always looking for, for the next greatest opportunity to, to expose a new set of clients to, to the old national brand, particularly new markets. We are entering into a branding and, and a partnership opportunity with the Minnesota Wild up in, up in Minnesota.

And hockey in Minnesota is like basketball in Indiana. Everybody's involved with, with hockey. So we look forward to that partnership as well.

But I. You know, I am like, that just speaks to me so much of like what banking is all about when I see that ad. And I'll make sure and embed that with the with this podcast when it goes live so folks can see that.

Did some video material where we ask our clients to talk about us and and, and so many of our clients have these deep, long histories that are tied together particularly some multi-generational businesses. And so we're just so proud to have a, a part and a hand and, and in those businesses and, and whether you know, those businesses have, have been a part of the old national story for 190 years, or they're new businesses and, and.

They, maybe they were longtime Bremer clients or longtime first Midwest clients. You know, we think about 'em the same way. And so we're really blessed to do that old fashioned community banking that everybody knows and loves. And, and that's really a people first strategy. You know, we lead with our people first. People are the most important asset that we have.

And, and we think that you know, where there's opportunities to have a relationship, a part of the buying decision, we're gonna do really well. If the buying decision is mostly exclusively focused in on the technology or the mobile experience. You know, there are a lot of people out there that compete with the technology and mobile experience, and those are important and we need to be competitive with that. But will we really win?

Is when we have the opportunity to build deep relationships with clients that oftentimes last, you know, multiple generations.

It's, it's how do we bring the best of who we are, the culture that attracts people to wanna work for us. And it's that kind of hometown Midwestern hospitality kind of culture. How do we bring that to the places like the Twin Cities? How do we bring that to Chicago? How do we bring that to Detroit? How do we bring it to Kansas City and St. Louis, which are some of our newer markets? And, and I think.

Being very grounded in a smaller community like Evansville, I think allows us to, to be a little bit more successful. And it's certainly you know, when I go out and visit places in North Dakota, you know, recently Bremer the Bremer partnership has brought us some new locations and Minot and Grand Forks and places like that. When that, I say I'm from a small town and I recognize the importance of what small town means and our impact in those small towns.

I think that really resonates well with those team members and, and the clients that I speak with. It's not to say you couldn't do those things if you were headquartered in Chicago or headquartered in the Twin Cities directly, but I do think it helps you have a, maybe a better understanding of the unique opportunities and, and just because we've grown outside of Evansville and now Chicago's our biggest market, the Twin Cities are our second biggest market.

It doesn't mean we've forgotten our hometown. You know, like I just said, we're up in Indianapolis today you know, working on our, our fever partnership and sponsorship. And so we're so excited about what that, what that might bring. So we continue to be a, a very big supporter. And in fact, I spend a lot of personal time. I'm a part of the economic development activities that happen here in southern Indiana. I'm on a hospital board that's headquartered here in southern Indiana.

So I personally put a lot of time into the local community as well.

It's hosted by Rob Blackwell, an award-winning former journalist with more than two decades of experience as an expert on financial services policy, who is now Chief Content Officer and head of External Affairs at Intrafi. So you to listen to the podcast, go to Intrafi.com to learn more. And thank you again to Intrafi Banking with Interest Podcast for sponsoring this episode.

To turn a little bit to a, a topic that's a little harder to discuss and that's the you know, the 2023 shooting attack at an ONB branch in, in Louisville, Kentucky. You know, we certainly, that was a horrifying thing to read about at at the ABA and, you know, just feeling, felt, feel so much sympathy for everyone who was affected by that. Heaven forbid any, any bank CEO ever has to go through something like that at their bank ever again. But what was it like to lead your bank through that time?

And what is your, what's your advice for bank, for corporate leaders who, who may have to address that kind of situation with their people and with their at one of their locations?

And my immediate reaction, I was still at home when I got the phone call from our Chief Risk officer, my immediate reaction was to get in the car and drive there as fast as I could. And that's exactly what I did. I was still there. You know, I was on the ground, was the first one there from, from, you know, our, our corporate team. And I found our leader, Dennis Heishman, who had taken refuge in a, in a dentist office that was just down the street after he fled the building.

I. He was in a total state of shock. And I was able to, to find him and, and to start to bring some, some sense about where, where everybody was at, what was going on, who was impacted. And it was a really you know, awful, terrible day that I wish on. Nobody and nobody else's family. Yeah. So we were obviously you know, it was, it was a time for us to rally behind the families of those five team members and our other team members who were at the, at the place at our office.

And we did our absolute best to rally behind. All of those people that were affected. But to go to, you know, five funerals and five visitations and five services were something that you just can't even imagine how, how terribly difficult that is for those families. And you just want to be there to support them, to take care of them, and to hug 'em and to love on 'em. We use words like "love," "i care," support every single week in the company. We were always a very caring company.

We always felt like we were a family. But that definition of family was completely reinforced. After you go through a tragedy like that and to. To do that. It takes a lot of love, it takes a lot of support, and it takes a lot of care. And so I send out a weekly communication and I talk about that. I talk about how we need to, you know, love one another, more care for one another you know, more deeply and take care of one another and be there for each other.

So it's, it's still very hard today, two years later. And it's yeah.

And in this crazy, crazy world we live in, it's a good thing to love each other and it's a good thing to support one another. So I would just encourage us to find ways to do more of that as leaders in our organizations.

What, what, what do you see as kind of some of the biggest policy issues that are affecting mid-size banks and, and, and banks similar to yours in terms of you know, how, how you are, how, what's affecting your, the policy landscape for banks like yours?

And really as an industry, I, I can't imagine operating without having the a BA help leading us forward. There are a lot of trade associations in the financial services industry, as you know. But I think the a BA on the whole collectively is thinking about all of the interests of, of our I think all of our stakeholders, right? That would be our clients, the communities, the regulators. Local governments, federal governments, and, and obviously, you know, banks in general.

So I do really think they take a balanced approach to, to all of it. And, and sometimes there are things that are unique to mid-size banks. You know, clearly some of the policy initiatives I. You know around FDIC resolution planning around the $100 billion threshold and what that means and, and one that I'm particularly passionate about that the A BA has spent a lot of time on is it time to modernize? FDIC insurance coverage. Yeah, you know, it has not been indexed for inflation.

Money moves so much faster than it moved before. You have the social media phenomenon. You know, banks have. Gotten bigger you know, and so is it really time to step back and, and think about how should FDIC coverage work? You know, we saw with Silicon Valley Bank and, and, and the failure that happened there and the subsequent challenges the industry industry faced in March of 2023.

You know, that that idea and phenomenon, that liquidity, we always knew liquidity is a risk to our industry, but that's largely built on confidence. And we saw that confidence erode very, very quickly. Particularly you know, in the advent of, of how, you know, media works and social media works and how quickly those negative stories can, can influence and impact people and that money moves so quickly. So, so this is one that I think is, is important for the a BA to take a lead on.

There are other trade associations like the mid-size bank coalition that I spend time on their board working on. But I think there's, I think there's broad support and recognition that the FDIC coverage should change. But there are a lot of questions about how do we apply it. Who pays for it? You know, what, what segments are are impacted. And obviously it's something complex when you have to have, you know, members of Congress get involved. You have to have the regulators weigh in.

You have to have, you know, 4,000 banks have a perspective on this topic. So it is an interesting challenge, but I take it as an opportunity to really make it you know, this, this better. And, and fundamentally I just believe it's also. Very challenging for, we saw with Silicon Valley, the most sophisticated institutional investors had a hard time, you know, judging the risk inherent in having deposits above the FDIC insurance limits at, at, at, at a bank, at a financial institution.

And so you think about that from a corporation perspective, a small business perspective, an individual perspective, I think it can be really challenging for them to really understand what are the inherent risks there. And so as a result of that, it gets far beyond the time that we, we need to look at this for our country, you know, for the, the, all of the stakeholders involved and obviously, you know, for the health and, and safety and soundness of, of financial services.

You know, we all know that a big part of having a relationship with a financial institution is we want the entire relationship, right? We want to be able to not only, you know, offer capital. To those institutions for them to grow. But we also want to receive that liquidity from those institutions. Look for wealth management opportunities for those principal leaders, try to do the banking for the team members that work for those businesses.

And so I think when you look at, at deepening those relationships. You know, that, that that's where oftentimes you can exceed those FDIC insurance loads, and there are opportunities to, to ensure outside of that, but that becomes difficult particularly as you think about operating accounts and, and we take advantage of those and there's some really great offerings out there, but it also makes it more complex, you know, for the individual small business.

To really understand about you know, how they ensure they have that full coverage. And I do think it would be a shame we saw this coming, we've seen this, you know, post you know, GFC year. I think we've seen a little bit coming out of, of, you know, the March 23 liquidity crisis. Deposits are continuing to consolidate at those institutions deemed so big that the government will have to step in in the event that there is an, there is a failure with those institutions.

And so I think what makes the America, what makes America so special is that we have this really diverse set of financial institutions that serve places like Evansville, Indiana or Minot, North Dakota, or. You know, Ann Arbor, Michigan, you pick, pick your favorite spots. Mm-hmm. And, and the largest financial institution in our country are amazing. They do some amazing things. They do things that quite frankly, banks like Old National probably could never do.

But we also do some pretty amazing things too when we show up and we represent and we take care of our communities. And so I think we just really benefit when we have this really healthy, diverse set of banks across our country. And so to the extent that that liquidity keeps getting pushed because of this notion that in the event of, of stressful times, the government will step in and help the large institutions and old national Bank benefit from that, we're getting to be a larger institution.

Right. So I don't want, I don't want to, you know, deny that we might also benefit from that in the future. Yeah. But I do just think it's in the best interest of our country. It's in the best interest of our ability to grow and invest in places just like Evansville, Indiana. To have financial institutions who want to do business here, and you don't only have to go to the largest cities to find capital.