Amanda Eversole, Financial Services Forum | Banking on Trust

Amanda: It's like every day you're interviewing for your job. Every day we have to earn that trust. ANNCR: Behind every major policy decision, every corporate strategy, every Washington power play are the insiders shaping the game and the new rules to win it. The deciders with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Brody Mullins and veteran DC strategist, Lisa Camuso Miller. Brody: Welcome to The Deciders, where we talk to the insiders rewriting the rules for effective advocacy in Washington. Today we're pleased to have Amanda Eversol, the new president and CEO of the Financial Services Forum. Amanda, thanks for joining us. Lisa: Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Amanda, you have a great backstory and a great career. Tell us how it is you got to be where you are today. Amanda: Thanks so much. Again, it's great to be with you guys. My career's a little bit atypical for Washington. I never worked on the Hill and I never worked in administration. But at the end of the day, every place I've been, I've always run integrated advocacy campaigns, but the candidate, so to speak, was the issue. And so whether that was my 13 years at the US Chamber of Commerce, whether that was my time internal at JPMorgan Chase or the last seven years that I spent at the American Petroleum Institute, it was always figuring out how to run issue campaigns to ultimately win in Washington. Brody: Tell us about the Financial Services Forum. So there's sort of an alphabet soup of financial services trade associations in Washington, the ABA, the Consumer Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute. Tell us about you guys. Amanda: Yeah. The financial service and forum represents the eight largest banks in the United States or the GSIBs, the global systemically important banks just rolls off your tongue. But these are household brands that everybody knows and their CEOs are my board of directors. Brody: So you worked at a number of trade associations, as you mentioned. Has that role changed as in I always thought that trade associates were sort of staying behind the scenes and member companies even further behind the scenes. And now it seems like to be effective in Washington, companies and associations and CEOs need to be more out front. Is that a change you've seen? Amanda: I think that there's a fundamental change in the role of trade associations, but I think about it as really the role of what it is we're doing here. And I think it used to be that it was about information. People joined their trade association because they wanted to know what was going on in Washington, but now information is everywhere and it's about really making sure that you're driving intelligence. And then what is the action that you can take? Because sometimes it's better to act as the entire industry or as the part of, in my case, just the largest banks because you can drive more durable, more sustainable, long-term outcomes that way. Brody: That seems another area that seems harder and harder. I mean, you've got the president who this president who wants to talk directly to the CEOs doesn't like dealing with trade association. I think people in the White House don't like dealing with trade associations. How do you act as an industry and keep everyone together when the president or other people are trying to talk directly to your members? Amanda: Yeah, I would say that this theme really isn't all that different. At the end of the day, decision makers like to talk to decision makers. We have conversations almost on a daily basis with the administration and my job is to make my board's lives easier. I need to represent them as effectively as possible in Washington such that when they engage here, it is effective. I'm their own productivity quotient here in Washington. And so from that perspective, we need to do the legwork. And so when it's time for the CEO to come in and close the deal, that we've done that. At the end of the day, we're in the relationship business here. And so it's having the humility to understand that I'm not running a global bank. And so my board members are going to be best served to talk about some of those specific issues and so I need to set them up so their time is used most efficiently. Lisa: You talk about this being a relationship town. Are there any mentors that stand out to you over the course of time that stand out as those that have taught you and help you understand trade associations better? Amanda: Yes. I've been so lucky being around some of just the most brilliant people in the history of this town. And one of them is Tom Donahue, the sort of legendary CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce. And when I started there, I was just a couple years out of school and I think I really first caught his eye because I was running microphones at an event and he liked the hustle and he liked people that would really just roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, but also could figure out how to keep an eye on the strategy. And so over my 13 years at the US Chamber, I was both his chief of staff for eight of those years, but he also always required that I had at least one, sometimes two other jobs at the same time because he pushed me to be better than even I thought I could be. And he also wanted me to understand operational excellence, but also to get a sense of the policy at the same time. And I did not always appreciate it in the moment, but looking back, it was a real gift. Another person that I'm so lucky to have had the pleasure to work with is Mike Summers, who I know was on your show. Mike is one of the most likable people in Washington and I think that that is one of his superpowers, but Mike is also incredibly strategic and he also has showed me that showing up really matters. One of the things that people say about Mike is that he's everywhere, but he's there for his friends, he's there for his members. I've learned so much from him and I'm really, really grateful for that. Lisa: Amanda, you talked a lot about your own mentors, but now you're running this organization and have lots of folks that are looking up to you. How do you translate what you've learned from your mentors and turn that into something that's of value to the team that you're building? Amanda: Yeah. I always hear Tom Donahue in the back of my mind who says, "Amanda, if you can, you must." And that applies in a lot of different levels, but it certainly applies to understanding that part of my job is to help develop that next generation. I have been so incredibly fortunate to have people who have invested in me over the course of my entire career and I love doing that. And part of what I feel like I have a responsibility is to not just tell them what they want to hear, but I tell them things like hard work is actually hard work. There's no shortcut there. You can be more efficient, you can make sure you have your priorities right, but don't let people mislead you. If you want to get ahead, you are not going to do that by working nine to five with a one hour lunch break. You're just not. And I think that telling people the truth and doing so though in an empathetic way, helping them understand from my mistakes of which I have made many over the years and I especially focus on some of the young women because I found myself in fields, whether it's oil and gas or financial services that are still very male dominated. And so having the courage to just be you and that sometimes that means being different, but sometimes it means leveraging being different to make sure that your voice is powerful. Brody: We'll be right back on the deciders. Lisa: Welcome back to the Deciders. We're with Amanda Ebersol. Brody: Let's go back to the Financial Services Forum. What sets it apart from the other financial services associations of DC other than the size of the membership? Amanda: Yeah, we represent only the big guys. And so what I try to focus on is really the prioritization, the posture and the people. So prioritization, just focus on keeping the main thing the main thing. If other organizations are covering it, then we should assist but not lead. The posture, it's being forward leaning. Be proud of who we are and what we stand for. We have the best banks on the planet. We have the strongest banking system on the planet. It is not only an economic asset, it's a national security asset and we should be telling anybody who's willing to listen that. And so that's really important. And then the third is the people. It's getting the right people in the right seat, both internal to the organization, within the membership, making sure that we're tapping into the almost 700,000 people that work for our member companies and then getting the right assistance on the outside to carry the message forward. Lisa: A big part of your charge now is to really elevate the financial services forum and to help people understand better who it is and what you do. Talk about what your plan is to elevate the organization. Amanda: One of the things that I think is so incredibly important is to really communicate not only through our policy positions, but through our words, the way we show up, how we show up is how proud we are of what we contribute to the national discourse and to the overall economy. We have customers in every single congressional district across the country. We have employees in almost every single state across the country and that means that we can meet the needs of Main Street, whether you are saving for your retirement, whether you're a small business that's trying to expand, or whether you are a very large business trying to do a global transaction. We can do that from soup to nuts. So standing up, being proud and telling that story effectively and not being afraid to be who we are is really, really important. Brody: So you represent eight of the biggest financial services firms, as you mentioned. Those companies represent sort of the titans of industry CEOs that are used to getting their own way. How do you balance the interests of your various members on policies like crypto or like this housing bill that's coming down the pike? Amanda: Yeah. I would say very carefully and laugh a little, but really it's not all that different than other effective trade associations in this town. You have to have a clear process, you have to listen, you have to communicate well, but ultimately you have to drive consensus around issues. You also can't be afraid to take a position because I do think that some trade associations risk getting conflicted out of taking a position. And if you sink to the lowest common denominator, you quickly lose relevance and I think members should at that point be asking, "Why does the trade association exist?" On the other hand, you can't be so aggressive such that you lose your members. It is a careful balancing act around how far, how fast, but that is sort of the art of being in a trade association. Diplomacy is definitely a skillset that's really important, but I would also say that having the courage to tell people what you think is also really important. And that's not to say that my members have to agree with me, they certainly do not, but I have to be able to give them my best advice through the lens of my 20 plus years in Washington. Lisa: We'll be right back. Brody: Welcome back to The Deciders. Amanda, you recently created the American Growth Alliance of 501. Tell us about that. Amanda: Absolutely. In December, we announced the creation of this new organization and it's a really important tool to ensure that my member companies have a seat at the table in some of the most important discussions about the way that the economy is growing and shaping. And so we're really excited to be able to launch this organization. Brody: Do you think we're at a pivot point in the creation of 501 and/or SuperPACS as in for many years companies stayed out of that game and it seems like more and more we're hearing of publicly traded companies and associations starting to create C4s or give to super PACS. Where do you think we are in that political moment? Amanda: I think we've probably already reached a tipping point. There is critical mass in terms of the number of industries that are represented. I would say individual companies, that's probably still a little bit on the leading edge of how all of this is shaping up. But when you step back, it's about understanding the tools that we have as trade associations to advocate on behalf of our members. And so I see this as one tool to advocate on behalf of the donors to this organization. Lisa: Banks have always had a tremendous amount of influence. Wall Street being really sort of the biggest player in all of that, but now the president has proposed capping credit card rates. Talk to us a little bit about how you're dealing with the rise of populism in the Republican Party. Amanda: Yeah, I think that's a really great question. I think a lot of times people think in terms in linear terms and they talk about politics as a spectrum from the far left to the far right. I think that we are seeing from a populist standpoint, much more of a horseshoe. And when I look over the course of the last call it five years, there are more and more those types of issues, particularly being associated with bigness, size, reach. And I think that there is a distrust of things that are large. And so from our perspective, that means that we have an even higher obligation to tell the story, not through the lens of our parochial interests, but around the role that we play in every community across this country, every congressional district for our consumers and our clients. Brody: That horseshoe effect has created so many unusual bedfellows with the president and J.D. Vance reaching out to liberal Democrats working on these issues, sort of shows how the world is upside down right now in Washington. Speaking of which the crypto industry has started its own Super PAC. They spent 200 million in the last cycle. It's very unusual for an industry, a regulated industry to go after an incumbent member of Congress and they went after Shared Brown, the chairman of the Senate Bank Committee and won, but they also seem to have upset Democrats along the way. Do you think there's a chance that the super PAC run by the crypto folks will backfire, especially if Democrats take over the House and maybe the Senate? Amanda: Yeah. I wish I had a crystal ball. It would help me in a lot of different parts of my life, but I don't. So time will tell that. But from my perspective, the strategy that we've taken through the American Growth Alliance is one where we support people that support us and some of the issues that are being discussed right now risk having capital flow outside of the banking system, which means that our ability to lend to US consumers and businesses goes down and that is not an insignificant policy question and one that should be debated and we should get it right and we should not just look for the fastest answer. Brody: So the conventional wisdom is this is the fight between traditional banks and crypto. Is that oversimplified? Are there areas where banks are working with crypto companies? Amanda: Yes. I think because it's Washington, right? There's a red team and a blue team and us versus them. When you go outside of the beltway, there are commercial relationships happening every single day between innovative companies, including the crypto companies that are in the news all the time and my member companies. And it's because we want to offer our clients and our customers things that they want that make their businesses that make their lives better. And our industry's had a really long history of innovation, whether it's the creation of the ATM, the movement to digital payments, online banking, automatic bill pay. These are things that really have significantly improved the customer experience. And so this crypto, for example, the leveraging blockchain technology, tokenizing assets that exist in the real world have benefits. You only have to buy one house to understand how much paperwork goes into doing that. If we can find ways to tokenize things such that you can reduce paperwork burdens, that's great for everybody. So finding the use cases that really have the maximum benefit, we're very pro- innovation. We just want to do it by protecting the system and protecting consumers at the same time. Brody: So where does that put you on the bill right now that's in the Senate? Amanda: Yeah. So the Clarity Act advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee, but there's still some major issues that have yet to be resolved. We want a bill, hard stop. And we're really supportive of a lot of the provisions within the Clarity Act, including something as simple as bank permissibility, which says banks, small, medium, and large and credit unions have the ability to use leverage this technology. And then there are some really big issues like the question of payment of interest and what that will do to the overall banking system. And from that perspective, seeing billions, if not trillions of dollars leave the banking system to less or unregulated areas not only creates systemic risk, but it also reduces the ability to lend in and create economic opportunity. Billions of dollars lost means trillions of dollars in economic impact that is not able to be put in the system. Brody: So it's June to most of the world, we're not yet halfway done the year, but in Washington we're almost done. Is there enough time to move this bill through the Senate and then merge it with the House? Amanda: Yeah, we'll see. Time is really short, but there's been a lot of work put into this legislation for more than a year now. And so we're going to continue to advocate strongly to get a bill done, but we also will be vigorous in our support of getting it done right. Lisa: Amanda, we ask every guest three questions. Brody: What's one decision from the past year that you're especially proud of? Amanda: Well, I think we've talked a lot about it today. I'm really, really proud of having the opportunity to serve as president and CEO of the Financial Services Forum. And I think when I boil it down, it was picking courage over certainty. I had one of the best jobs in Washington. I had a fabulous boss. I had a great team. I had a supportive board and I took a big risk professionally and personally to join this incredible industry and I am so humbled to have the opportunity and really haven't looked back since. Lisa: What's one thing you would do over? Amanda: This is a really good question and in many ways I think I wouldn't change anything because you do learn the most from the stumbles and from the missteps. And so I appreciate those moments. But what I would say is that I would trust my gut a little bit sooner. As a new CEO, you're always looking to people who have been there longer or done it, but in that quiet moment, you can only make the decisions with the best information you have available at the time and at the end of the day, trust your gut. Lisa: Great answer. Brody: What's something that people in Washington are not talking about but should be? Amanda: I think that we don't talk about trust enough. The banking system is built on trust. The trust that the system is going to work, I mean, if you think about it, you go and put your money in a place and you believe that you're going to get your money back and that's a really big deal. And so we actually just did some survey work and it turns out that banks came back as one of the most trusted industries out there. But what we have to do, I think every day we have to earn that trust. We cannot take it for granted. We have to tell our story. We have to be proud of who we are and what we stand for and we have to earn that trust every day and we cannot take past success as a prediction of future performance. And I think every day it's like every day you're interviewing for your job. And so whether it's trust in my member companies or whether it's trust in the banking system or whether it's trust in institutions writ large, I think we need to really think about how we show up and then what we can do to earn that trust every day. Lisa: Great answer. Brody: I was going to say great answer. Lisa: Yeah. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. This was really terrific. Brody: Welcome back to The Deciders. That was Amanda Eversole. Lisa, what did you think? Lisa: I was taken by the fact that she talked about the size and the breadth of her member, the companies, the banks themselves. The bigger you are, the less trust there is, but then talks about how the most important currency here in Washington is trust itself. So that's a pretty tough job to have to take both of those on and win that back every day. Brody: Yeah, I agree. And another thing I was struck by is how much is changing in her world. Now she's only been at the Financial Services Forum for less than a year, but just during that time we've seen the rise of super PACS and in her case the 501 we've seen this turn against big business that she talked about where big is all of a sudden bad and leading that trust deficit. She talked about moving her association from being behind the scenes to being more out front for the first time. Then you've got a president who likes stealing not with the trade associations the Presidents normally would, but with the CEOs themselves. But then she talked about the importance of trust in terms of closing the deal, that the job of her association is sort of move the ball down the field, keep things going and get things set up for her member companies to come in using their trust to close the deal. I thought that was fascinating. Lisa: Great conversation. Brody: Thanks for joining us on The Deciders. We'll see you next time ANNCR: The Deciders is hosted by Brody Mullins and Lisa Camooso Miller and produced by Dave Tobey. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Find more online at deciders.show and follow the deciders on YouTube, LinkedIn and X.