Aaron Dorn, Studio Bank (TN)

On the Balance Sheet® S1 E3 - Aaron Dorn, Studio Bank (TN)

[Vinny, 0:00]:

Episode 3 of On the Balance Sheet. I'm Vinny Clevenger, once again joined by Zach Zoia, and Zach, when we conceptualized the show, we wanted to make sure that we gave our listeners an opportunity to kind of be exposed to the great folks we get a chance to work with across the country. And obviously, what is more entertaining is to have an opportunity to hear about different types of stories? And today is a de novo story, if you will Zach, Aaron Dorn.

[Zach, 0:27]:

Yeah Vin, I'm really excited to bring Aaron onto the show today. Aaron's the Chairman, CEO, and President of Studio Bank in Nashville, TN. He's also one of the founders, and they're about four years old. I've known him for about 2 1/2 years now, and I think what we'll get into hopefully today is just some of the insights that he's gleaned from his prior banking experience up until when he started Studio back in 2018, kind of what they're up to now, and what the future holds for Studio and the banking industry overall. And I think the listeners will see that Aaron is a really super impressive banker, leader, and just a great person overall. So, I'm really excited to bring Aaron on today to have him tell his story. And I know I think we'll all learn a lot from what he has to say. 

[Vinny, 1:13]:

Absolutely, episode 3, without further ado, Aaron Dorn. 

[Zach, 1:19]:

We are pleased to be here with Aaron Dorn, Chairman, CEO, President, and founder of Studio Bank in Nashville, TN. Hey, Aaron, how you doing today?

[Aaron Dorn, 1:29]:

Hey, I'm great, great. Good to see you, good to chat with you.

[Zach, 1:32]:

Absolutely, and I think we got a really good episode here for all of our viewers. And I think, for the most part, we just want to start off with... I know you're at Studio Bank now, you've been there since 2018, I guess, since you folks first launched. But can you give us a little background on how you got into banking and some of your work prior to Studio and how that kind of got you ready for the task and challenge of launching Studio Bank?

[Aaron Dorn, 1:57]:

Absolutely, happy to. I actually studied finance in college and did my internship in banking. I was offered a full-time role right out of college in banking. That was with the old Union Planters Bank, a Memphis-based bank. But they brought me here to Nashville, and that's what took me here originally. I'm originally from Charleston, SC, by way of Florida, actually. So yeah, I was in commercial underwriting, mostly commercial real estate. I was administering draws on large construction projects, underwriting deals. Eventually, I wound my way into portfolio management for a large number of different types of deals from commercial real estate to large corporate to middle market. And eventually, after Union Planters was acquired by Regions Bank, I was part of the Regions team that eventually left to start a new bank, which eventually became known as Avenue Bank, which was a quasi de novo bank. We actually acquired a charter and recapitalized and changed the name, logo, headquarters. So, I was a part of that, and from the very beginning of it, and after a few years of that, I took a hiatus in my career, stepped away during the troop surge in Iraq and Afghanistan, and joined the United States Marine Corps, served as an officer in the Marines for four years, including a tour in Afghanistan. And then after my tour was done, I was approached by Avenue Bank to come back as an executive at the company. So, I was in charge of the retail bank and eventually strategic planning, project management, special projects, and marketing at the bank. So, I held a number of different senior-level roles at Avenue Bank before I eventually got the drive to start my own company. I was not sure what kind of company that would be and left Avenue Bank on a full scholarship to Vanderbilt University's MBA program, where my intention was to figure out what kind of company I wanted to start or find a company to acquire while I was in grad school. So, I was on a very different track than most of my peers at that time. And it was during that time that Avenue Bank sold to Pinnacle, which is our largest competitor here. Pinnacle is a Southeast Regional Bank. And that got my wheels turning, so I spent a lot of time doing due diligence while I was in Graduate School, planning, and assessing whether it was the right time in the right market for a new bank. So that's kind of the background leading up to Studio Bank.

[Zach, 4:31]:

No, it's really fascinating and a really intriguingbackground you have there. And would you say your experiences at Ave. were a big launching point to say, you know what? We've kind of done this to an extent before. I mean, not a brand-new bank, I guess. But you did acquire a charter and do all the capitalization efforts. Was that a big variable, I guess, in saying what I have some familiarity with banking? Or were there other factors that went into that as well?

[Aaron Dorn, 4:57]:

Certainly a big variable. You learn a lot through that process. I was not an executive at the founding stage of the bank, I became one later. But for all of us that were part of the founding team of Avenue, it was our first time doing it. And so, you certainly learned a lot of lessons along the way. We did a lot of things right at Avenue, but as every startup would tell you, there are things we could do better. That was a wonderful set of experiences that helped inform how we shaped our business plan and our go-to-market strategy and all of that for Studio Bank. And then I was able to watch the company grow to being close to a billion in assets when I left Avenue, so I also got to see a glimpse of what a little bit of scale looked like. I was the project manager for our initial public offering, so I got to see that process. It kind of gave me a glimpse into what may be Studio Bank's future here in a few years. So, seeing that process over the course of 10 years certainly shaped how we've built a really strong foundation for Studio at this point.

[Zach, 6:08]:

Makes a lot of sense, and I think, could you maybe... you know, Vin and I were kind of joking around about "De Novos for Dummies," and just some things if you're starting a bank, or some of the things you learned in terms of key things, whether it was you getting the right people on your advisory board or things like that. What were some of the key things you think you guys did well at the start? And maybe if you want to expand some more, what were some of the biggest challenges or obstacles as you were getting going outside of maybe COVID happening during year 2 and you know kind of starting in 2018, which is when rates were probably the last time they were this high.

[Aaron Dorn, 6:43]:

Yeah, there's so many decisions that go into starting a new bank from scratch, especially now post-2008-2009 financial crisis time frame. De Novo banks in the past were a much different... It was a much different startup process than it is now. You have to get a lot of things right to come out of the gate as a successful De Novo like we have. You have to get a lot right. In our case, some of the critical factors, clearly factor #1 is the team. It's getting a team with experience doing this, a team with the right attitude about how we're going to do it, cohesiveness among the executives of the company and what we're all about. And then the ability to execute on that. So that's the team, and it's absolutely the most important factor, and I'm certainly biased, but I think our results kind of speak for themselves. We've got a phenomenal team. So that's one. The second piece, again, it's obvious, but the market that we're in. You know it's obvious if for anyone who follows kind of the top most active markets, I would say in the country, Nashville is usually listed at the top, towards the top of those lists. And so, we've got a very vibrant market. Those two factors are abundantly the most important ones, a great team and a great market. To that, I would add a series of decisions that have to be made when you start a company like what's your initial capitalization going to be, you know, what's your business model really going to be designed around? In our case, for example, we started the bank with not only the balance sheet side loan and deposit growth, but we also started it almost as a second company in its entirety, which is a mortgage division. Having those two primary drivers of our business were very important from the beginning and turned out when the pandemic happened and rates dropped rapidly, the way that we had designed our business model allowed us to continue to grow and to grow our profitability even during that period of time. So, business model design was really important. You alluded to this, I think you mentioned something about our shareholder base. We took a very egalitarian approach to who was going to be investors in our company. So, we worked very, very hard to have a diverse shareholder base from day one that would absolutely be champions for the company. We have over 500 shareholders from the very beginning of the bank, and that was by design. And then yes, that takes a lot of investor relations effort. But it was more than worth it to have such a broad coalition of Nashville business leaders, community leaders behind this movement called Studio Bank. And that's really what it takes to launch with a lot of momentum. You've got to have a coalition behind the bank to help it launch.

[Vinny 9:46]:

Aaron this is Vin here and I have long said that there seem to be two criteria that are really important for a successful bank. Obviously, if you look at operating results and so forth, but I think the first is the people. But maybe even more important is the market. When you see the combination of those two come together, you see some very successful results. I actually work with somebody in your neighborhood, and they're a very, very successful bank, and it sounds like it's very similar, really strong people, and what a market. When Zach and I travel the country, it's almost like we talk about your market as an outlier relative to loan growth. And so, I'm curious, obviously it's competitive, obviously it's no secret that your market is very vibrant and growing, and there are a lot of reasons for that. I'm just curious how you folks fit into it. I look at the size of your balance sheet after just a couple of years of operation, and you've done a really, really nice job. I just spoke to kind of the cohort of folks that you brought on to kind of start this up, but what do you think has been the determining factor behind your growth and how you've grown at such a significant level, not just on the loan side but also on the deposit side? It's really pretty significant when you take a look at it, particularly versus other banks. I know there's been some COVID surge and so forth that everyone's dealt with, but what is it specifically in your market that you folks are doing, maybe a little bit differently, that has really created that level of growth we're seeing?

[Aaron Dorn, 11:14]:

One thing I would say is it's by design. Not only was I at Avenue from the beginning, but part of my due diligence before starting Studio was to go back and study prior successful De Novo banks in the Nashville market and literally go out to pull their call reports from their first five or six years and study them quarter by quarter, compare, contrast, and understand where some banks had a strong strategy and some didn't. And one thing that I noticed is that we had some De Novos in the past, when rates dropped on them unexpectedly, they didn't have a robust deposit strategy. They had a lot of fixed-rate deposits, which caused their margin to get squeezed. They didn't get profitable as quickly as they wanted to, and by that point, the dilution from the equity to their employees and founders started kicking in, and it created an uphill battle from a share count and from a profitability standpoint that was very difficult for them to overcome in years five through ten. With that in mind, I wanted to make sure that if we were going to launch this bank, we had a deposit strategy that was core, it was absolutely core deposits that would give us the flexibility to increase or decrease rates as the interest rate environment changed. So, with being a small company, we launched the company with about 30-something people, which for some De Novos is a lot of people. In our case, because we launched a mortgage company at the same time, it's a little different. But we launched with about 30 people, and of those, I think eight were commercial and private bankers. And so, with that...and only one branch location. In order to drive deposits there, I had to make sure of that initial eight bankers, we had some of them who were going to drive deposits more than loans. And so, it was a self-funding strategy. In assembling the team, I knew that we needed to assemble a team that was diverse in the type of business that it develops. And then at the same time, that coalition of owners that I mentioned, a coalition of the owners of the company, really impressing upon them the whole time that we were raising capital and thereafter, that they can help drive the success of their company by helping us grow deposits. I've been preaching from the time that we opened the doors, even when it wasn't exactly fashionable, deposits, deposits, we're going to grow this bank, deposits first, the loans will follow, especially in a market like Nashville, but we've got to grow deposits first. So, it's a matter of...by design, staffing model combined with a culture from the very beginning of growing deposits first, and so that's how it's come to fruition and has continued. By the way, that was true before the pandemic. So, we don't see on our balance sheet a significant liquidity surge from the pandemic. Of course, every bank had deposit growth during that time, but this was actually happening before the pandemic for us with rapid deposit growth and an increasing percentage of DDA's that represent those deposits. So, it's not just the DDA numbers are increasing, it's the percentage of the total that's also increasing, and again that comes back to staffing and culture and how we set out from the beginning the strategy of the bank.

[Zach, 14:30

Aaron, kind of to that, you know, loan and deposit strategy standpoint, what are you folks most excited about? I think on the lending side, I think Vin has some questions on the deposit side we can get back to, but you know what areas are you focused on right now? What areas are really good opportunities in Nashville and kind of the surrounding markets that you folks have been looking at but also really excited about going forward?

[Aaron Dorn, 14:51]:

For us as a de Novo bank, we started off, especially on the lending side, with the basic blocking and tackling that you would expect. You know, again, I go back to only 8 bankers to begin with and to generate loan mix, we needed bankers that focused on 8 different sort of lines of business, and actually that's a value proposition to our clients too, to have industry experts who are serving them. So, creating diversity in the loan mix was really important. A market like Nashville, you have to be able to serve the commercial real estate sector. It is a vibrant commercial real estate market, prior to the pandemic and even now, post-pandemic, very low vacancy rates across the board. I remember before the pandemic, everyone was scared of retail and the commercial real estate sector. I will tell you Nashville's vacancy factor before the pandemic and even now after the pandemic for retail is very low. So, you have to be able to do commercial real estate. We certainly have an expert who's focused on that for 20 years. In addition to that, especially since the pandemic, with so many people moving to Nashville from much higher cost and much more restrictive states, public health-wise, we've had just an absolute boom in the housing market. This is true across the country, all the more so in Nashville. So, it's been important to us to do urban infill development. We don't do large tract building, but we will finance urban infill developments, which has been very successful for us. Not to mention, Nashville is an incredibly strong market for nonprofits and educational institutions. That's been a priority. I would add music and entertainment, of course. Music City, USA. And we've got a 40-year banker... I should say 40 years in music, business banking for about 25 years now, who's leading that charge. So, I would say basic blocking and tackling of the industries that you would expect. I would add manufacturing and distribution to that. We’ve since added medical and dental practice banking, and of course, in the healthcare capital of the world. So, I don’t know, those of you in Boston might disagree with that. But in Nashville we would say healthcare capital of the world. So, for the foreseeable future for us, it's more of the same. There are some areas in Nashville that are absolutely blossoming right now, like technology, with the Amazon expansion that we've had, and since then, we've had some major corporate headquarters relocations, like Oracle and a few others. So, I think going forward in the future, there's gonna be a whole lot more venture and a whole lot more technology banking here, which we're positioned well to serve with one of our bankers in particular. So really excited about that future of Nashville and believe that we will be a pretty big player in that space.

[Vinny, 17:43]:

Aaron this is Vin, would you care to just sort of elaborate on that a little bit regarding the evolution of kind of maybe fintech and how that fits into your business strategy moving forward with regards to the comments you just made?

[Aaron Dorn, 17:55]:

I just want to start by saying again, de Novo bank, the first three years, we're basically getting examined by our regulators every six to 12 months. We were not going to come out with some crazy fintech idea and have the regulators try to approve that. We were the first De Novo bank in Nashville to be formed in what is now, what is it, 14 years? The regulators were learning with us. But that said, it was very important from the beginning that we actually had a tangible, compelling value proposition for our clients when it came to our technology offerings and how we serve them. We are using a technology vendor for our core and our digital offerings that none of our key competitors in the market are using, and that's given us a pretty big advantage. So, we've taken the approach in our first few years with respect to fintech that we want to work with fintech partners who are enabling us and how we serve our clients. Keep in mind that it's primarily commercial clients. We do have a retail business with a few thousand accounts actually, but for us, it's primarily been about how do we serve very well with things like treasury management, online banking. And we chose a partner specifically that would allow us to differentiate with respect to that. Now going forward, I think any bank who buries its head in the sand and doesn't consider how financial technology will affect them going forward needs to have a strategy, whether that's enabling the back end of the bank or a client-facing side. I think that a bank who buries their head in the sand is going to struggle. So, in our case, it's more about a technology roadmap about what we want to be able to offer to our clients and when and why, and is there a compelling business case for that? I think there's a lot of banks trying things right now. Among community banks, especially of our size and limited to one market like Nashville, I think the use cases are more limited if it's going to be something that is important for shareholders in the near term. I'm not saying short term as in 12 months, but near term as in 3 to 5 years. But that said, as we grow, as we get bigger, being able to serve a more diverse client base with different offerings becomes more and more important for us. So that's part of our roadmap, but I hesitate to get into a lot of details about it right now. One for strategy sake and two, I think we're probably three to five years away from something that would affect our business model in a material way.

[Zach, 20:24]:

And I like how you mentioned partnering right with fintechs and doing things that are complementary to what your customers and your clients need. So, it's not like we're trying to be everything to everybody, but the things out there that fit what we have to do, you’re going to look into and try to make sure we're giving our clients the best services. And I think for a lot of things we've been talking with folks about, Aaron, when we just talk about non-asset liability management things, it always comes back to the deposit side. Right. And the tools there, and payments, and just the stability of the deposit base and how fintech might disrupt that. But I think as we go into a rising rate environment, you know here too, how do you feel about the disintermediation of deposits to markets by Goldman or other online type of digital banks, and just a rising rate? There's always money that does leave. How do you folks feel about general deposits in the industry and going forward?

[Aaron Dorn, 21:23]:

Clearly, it's going to be an issue and prior to the pandemic, we faced competition from online and non-banks to some extent. So, there's no question that banks are facing that type of competition in addition to the more traditional head-to-head competition. So, I bring it back to our value proposition. If you're a bank that does not have a compellingly differentiated value proposition, then you're going to struggle with this more than those who do have one. The emphasis for us is how can we create that compellingly differentiated and sustainable value proposition to where we can have low-cost deposits? We can have a low cost of funds because we're earning that by delivering some value to our clients. There’s a few different ways that we do that beyond simply good service, air quotes, you know, which is kind of the route answer that every bank offers. Well, what does that mean and how do you offer that in a way that's tangibly different from others who provide good service? That's the pressure that we put ourselves under. There are a few ways that we do that for our clients that are not even interest rate or fee based. It's how we deliver that service and what kind of services we offer.

[Zach, 22:40]:

Makes perfect sense. And can you kind of go into maybe a little bit more Aaron, about that client base and I know Studio Bank has evolved with the French bulldog being the mascot and just being a bank for creators. Can you go into maybe a little bit more about the folks you serve and then how the philosophy of Studio Bank intertwines with that?

[Aaron Dorn, 23:03]:

Yeah, there's actually a bit of a misperception around that. We intentionally say that we exist to empower creators. We don't say "creatives." You know, there are a lot of people who are creators who would never think of themselves as being creative. I would be one of those, in fact. But yet, here I am, with a team of wonderful people, having created this really amazing company. So, I wouldn’t call myself created but over the last few years of working on this, we’ve created something for sure. Our philosophy is that our role in the world as bankers is to empower people who are creating things. This is a reflection of the fact that in all of the known universe, there's nothing quite like the capacity of a human being to think of something that doesn't exist and want to go out and create it. And that happens every time a family has a child, a family buys a new house, they're trying to create a new life for their family, whether it's somebody writing a song or somebody trying to make healthcare better, or building a building, starting a company, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, this is the human capacity to create. Unfortunately, unlike God, we don't have ultimate power and resources to do that. Bankers play this amazing role in helping provide capital for people to do that. For 99% of the population, it's not venture capital. It's a commercial bank, a credit card, a home equity line of credit, a small business loan. We play this incredibly important role in the world in empowering people who want to create things, which is a divine urge inside of us to create something. We do that as a bank by providing financial resources, by serving people with our very best, by achieving things on their behalf, by making human connections, by being a connector of people, which banks can do in a really powerful way. That's how we view our role in the world. So, when it comes to who's our target audience, it's not just people who love French Bulldogs, who love our logo. It's actually much broader than that. That's why I said we serve a wide diversity of different industries with industry experts because that's part of that value proposition. People who are creating things in certain industries, we're going to empower them as best we can with bankers who know that industry inside and out and know how to serve it very well.

[Vinny, 25:46]:

And that was a tremendous answer there. You know, it's funny, you're talking about not just people who love French Bulldogs. I was thinking of my daughter. I have a 4 1/2-year-old, and she would love this bank, you know. But it was interesting reading through the website. It's like, you know, one thing about the French Bulldogs, they're sophisticated but not pompous, and I can't help but get that energy from you. You clearly have a tremendous background, tremendous education, service to our country, and creator of businesses. So where is Studio Bank and Aaron Dorn in the next five years? You know that proverbial question. What does it look like for you in the next five years? And what size do you think the bank looks like? What would be the optimal destination five years from now?

[Aaron Dorn, 26:32]:

Well, we just raised a bunch of capital in about two weeks' time. It was a whirlwind. So, I just told a whole lot of people this answer of where we think we'll be in about five years' time. So, I have to caveat that by just saying, you know, obviously what's happening in the world right now creates a giant uncertainty factor. We worked really ridiculously hard for about three or four months on a new long-term forecast and a bottoms-up approach, you know, hundreds of assumptions, not just goal-setting, but true forecasting. And then, sure enough, as soon as that happens, Russia invades Ukraine and it's all out the window. It's not all out the window, but these assumptions are variable. But what I would say is over the next five years, I would expect more of the same from Studio Bank. More of the same is the best answer. It's probably the most boring answer, but it's actually the most exciting to me. The reason for that is we are still early in our life cycle. We are not even four years old yet, and there's an element of scale as a company and a scale within our market that is still right in front of us. If we just continue to execute on the plan that we've been executing on, from my point of view, maybe, yeah, sure, there are maybe some new sources of fee income here and there, maybe a couple of new industries that we're serving by virtue of recruiting some great bankers and those who serve those industries. But more of the same is really what I would expect. So, you know, we've been growing by about 150 million a year. Whether you look at loans, deposits, or assets, we've generally been in that 150 million a year range. I hope we can maintain that. I hope we can exceed that. In fact, through adding new, great members to our team, which accelerates our growth. So that's the general answer I'd give you. Somewhere hoping for somewhere around 150 to 200 million a year, and that we can carry on that pace for the next five years or so at least.

[Zach, 28:27]

It's a great answer, and Aaron, we really appreciate all the time. I have one last question as we kind of wrap up here. I think it goes to that five-year or longer plan, the uncertainties. What do you see, maybe not just for you folks, but in general, in the banking industry, the biggest threats out there, or the biggest challenges coming down the pike for bankers, whether you're in Nashville, whether you’re in Seattle, whether you’re New England? What's your temperature read on that?

[Aaron Dorn, 28:55]:

You know, there are a couple of different things, and obviously in the very near term, it's, you know, what happens with interest rates and does the Fed put us into a recession at some point in the next few years? That's more of a near-term thing, and it's a very real issue. Lots of economists have their own opinions on whether the Fed will push us into a recession or not. And then what does that mean, obviously for credit quality and clients who survived the pandemic but may not survive the inflation aftermath? It's a pretty interesting dynamic to consider, at least from a historical perspective. So that's the near term, I'd say that's the near term. You know, in the long term, I think our industry as a whole, the consolidation that's happening, the shrinking number of banks is also going to be a significant factor in how different banks position themselves to be able to still compete when you are competing against other banks that have a lot more resources by virtue of consolidating. Are you partnering successfully with vendors or acquiring vendors that give you capabilities to be able to compete? It's almost like, you know, for small banks like us, it's almost like guerilla warfare. You've got to have something to offer people that the bigger banks don't have. So, I think that's a much broader issue. And then certainly, it goes without saying what happens, as you mentioned before, with the non-banks, whether that's credit unions eroding what banks are doing or whether that's true fintech, non-banks, and whether they continue to erode what banks are doing. I think that's part of a much larger issue in our country of people not trusting institutions like they used to and having more trust in somebody who's going to sell your data than an institution that's highly regulated. Maybe I'm giving away my opinion on that a little bit, but that's good. We like it. A much larger societal risk to banks, and I think you saw that with some of the Fed nominations and FDIC nominations that have happened recently. Some of the ideas that have been explored in the past that could be a present reality questioning even the role of banks in our country, which is just astonishing to me. So yeah, I think that's a big picture societal threat that banks face, whether we realize it or not. But I'm optimistic at the same time. I don't want to just cast a cloud. I'm very optimistic about the opportunities for banks like Studio to really differentiate ourselves and prove our worth and prove our trustworthiness to people over time, and I think we're doing that so far, and our intention is to maintain doing that as far as we can see into the future. So, I'm, I'm at the same time, I just want to be clear. I'm very optimistic, but you asked about the [inaudible].

[Zach, 31:41]:

I did, I did. I anchored you, you know, with that question. But I think Vin and I would totally agree too that banks have a very central role in the economy. And I think the wealth of our country and the growth, you know, and making sure that keeps going in the right area. We definitely hope that continues. And Studio Bank, I think it's gonna be a big part of that too, especially down in the Nashville area. So, Vin do you have anything else on your side of it or?

[Vinny, 32:06]:

No, but this is very informative, and thank you so much for your time. And again, the story is, I can't help but sense the energy. I think our listeners will feel it as well. And it's great to see really smart bankers paired up in great markets and just watching that synergy play out. And I think we're going to be seeing a lot more from Studio Bank as the next couple of years unfold, that's for sure. So, thank you very much, Aaron.

[Aaron Dorn, 32:34]:

Thank you. And Lord willing, that's true. And I'll also just add, I hope it's okay for me to add this, but we very much enjoy our partnership with the DCG and specifically with Zach there. I very much appreciate the partnership and couldn't sing your praises loudly enough. It's absolutely great working with you guys.

[Zach, 32:52]:

The pleasure's all ours, Aaron. So likewise, and again, thanks so much for the time today. And we look forward to seeing all the success of Studio in the future.

[Aaron Dorn, 32:59]:

Alright. Thanks, guys. See you.

[Zach, 33:04]:

Well, then, I thought that was a really great interview with Aaron, and we covered a broad-ranging kind of set of ideas and subjects here. What were some of your quick, you know, kind of quick takeaways from the conversation?

[Vinny, 33:16]:

Yeah, I mean, I guess you can't help but be struck by how articulate Aaron is, and obviously, his vision for the bank is very clear. When I was doing research on him on the website, he actually said his favorite quote is that famous Teddy Roosevelt quote about being the man in the arena. And the thing that I think lends a lot of credibility to that is the fact that he actually was the man in the arena. He left the career in banking and joined the Marines. And clearly, it prepared him for the challenges that come along with starting a community bank. We talked about the convergence of a market and a really dynamic management team. When you have both, and you see them come together, success is no surprise. So, seeing those things, getting to learn about his business, but I think most specifically, his leadership and his vision for that institution is what struck me as most impressive.

[Zach, 34:10]:

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree anymore. I think just some of the detail he gave too, right, in terms of how a lot of these things were by design, and there are certainly plenty of things that go on in the world that throw you off the plan, right overall, but they've been able to adapt and work through, you know, starting at the top in terms of a rising rate cycle right in the summer of 2018, going through COVID, and he made, I think, a pretty profound statement too about being a team first, and his team, it's not just about Aaron or any president or CEO or anything like that. It's about the team and the great people he has working at Studio Bank. And I know a bunch of them. It's really a privilege and a pleasure, you know, on my side, to be able to work with those folks. And I think you mesh that with a great market overall. And you have a really great recipe, at least the start of a really great recipe for success. So, we want to thank everybody today for tuning in to On the Balance Sheet, Episode 3, and we're looking forward to keeping you with us as we bring on more guests in the future here.

[Outro, 35:09]:

On the Balance Sheet is a podcast produced by Darling Consulting Group, DCG. All views and opinions expressed by hosts and guests are solely their own and may not represent those of DCG. All third parties are independent entities and are not affiliated with DCG. This podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only and is not considered as advice. All views and opinions expressed are based on the information available at the time, it may have changed on current market and other conditions. For more information about DCG; please visit www.darlingconsulting.com or email us at info@darlingconsulting.com. Today’s background music is provided by John Sib at Coma-Media and can be found on pixabay.com.      

The text of this transcript was generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) model, and its organization, grammar, and presentation enhanced by AI, and as such may contain errors or inaccuracies. DCG is not liable for any damages, however caused, that may result from any use of this content.