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Power of Collaboration: Maximizing Efficiency with Fintech Partnerships · Leaders in Lending

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  You're listening to Leaders and Lending from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping consumer
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  lenders grow their programs and improve their product offerings. Each week, here decision
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  makers in the finance industry offer insights into the future of the lending industry,
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  best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into the show.
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  Welcome to Leaders in Lending. I'm your host, Jeff Kellner. This week's
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  episode features my conversation with Matt Pierce, the chief lending officer at Leader Bank.
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  This is a fascinating conversation to me as Leader Bank has actually built some
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  software and house ultimately with spun out and is being used outside of the bank.
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  That was a fascinating twist on the build by partner discussion. Talked about
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  about how to think about where to build, where to partner. They've also
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  got some deep fintech partnerships with folks like Cansino, where they were very early
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  adopter, so kind of both where do we build when it's helpful, when
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  should we partner or buy when it's not. They've gone really interesting in the
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  cross selling and different kinds of products, including insurance, so I thought that
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  was another interesting area of Avenue kind of how they think strategically about that,
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  and then also talked about their experience during PPP where they actually dove into some
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  of these topics of building workflow to be really quick to adapt, easy to
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  get at, easy to keep up to date with the changing status of that
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  program, which was pretty real time. So I think a really interesting set
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  of experience is quite a bit different than many other institutions. I thought it
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  gives man a really interesting perspective. So please enjoy this conversation with Matt Pierce.
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  Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for making the time to join us today.
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  Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to talk
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  about this. You guys have some experience in fintech partnerships and also software,
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  which was an interesting part of the conversation when we first caught up. So
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  I kind of wanted you to go through a little bit of that story of
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  things you've built in the bank. It's fine out because it's such a it's
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  such a different story. We hear a lot about build versus by and you
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  know, you know a lot of people on the on the buy or partner
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  side. Any idea of building stuff that not only was useful for you,
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  useflexternally was just such a departure from so I really would love to hear the
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  kind of the more full version of that story. Sure sure so. Uh
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  so we had a bank, being a twenty year old bank, we've always
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  been very technology driven, um, always looking to kind of creating prially solutions
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  for our clients that we see opportunities in the market and probably you might be
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  closer to seven years now, five, five, six, three years ago.
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  Um, we saw our need in the in the marketplace for really for
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  the larger landlords that we were helping finance. We started to hear a lot
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  about um questions about compliance through the cand to m scared deposits, whether they
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  would him in it correctly. We do a lot of the mouth by family
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  finance thing. So um, we just started to kay that trend a little
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  bit. UM. Also, as we're located in the Boston market, we
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  decided to see trend where close to a lot of the colleges, a lot
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  of the times we'll get you know, three or four people living in one
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  apartment. There's parents that will go close high lease and they each one to
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  pay their character and decided to become a little bit of an administrative burden of
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  their office or pocket manager. So UH our team UM with the support of
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  our CEO, Gay Tuli and I'm sorry of UH CEO j jail Sulian President
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  Kaytuli, we developed a software called z rent and the Deposit and UH they
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  essentially our act as UH fintech solutions for UH collecting rents from multiple different fuses
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  and also UH the escrow which is a solution UH that helps with all the
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  compliance and reporting for security deposits. And there's two separate platforms UM and they
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  they really have added a lot of benefits and value to UM to those those
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  markets. Really what it is is we developed the software for side with z
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  escrow, UH is where the sturre deposits for the large property to come into.
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  And it really gives a nice sub account platform where all the all security
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  positives can be under one household but all has different suff account. It gives
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  the tenant the ability to view where they're security depositives, health, and it
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  gives all the electronic beneits of getting the W nine flow which is sometimes a
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  challenge to be fined out the clients. It has all that technology right embedded
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  in the software. Very very fluid, and it also takes the compliance headache
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  off out of the property manager of the landlord, knowing that Leader Bank will
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  facilitate all the compliance, non contation, all the annual letters that to go
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  out and interest checks that the tendant. All that's taken off the landlord put
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  onto our platform and we handle all of it at no cost as long as
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  they're using Leader Bank as a deposit customer the positive account. So it's a
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  great upsell cross sell for us. Use the rent a similar type of platform
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  where its electronic where um landmload has the four better apartment they can set up
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  through their z rent platform and email all the four tenants or fourth all their
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  parents. However, you know, if it's closed signers involved, they could
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  each put in up individually their information, their banking information. It's secure and
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  every month, whether it be through their portal or automatically rent, it paid
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  captured and reported and the positively to the landload account and the landload has a
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  full record of who paid what reconciliation every month, all automated and uh spinach
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  is a great feature that became very common in Boston to have these multiple rent
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  checks um and planiolive one was it's chasing down the checks they only got three
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  out of the four where the fourth one this takes all that off the gable.
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  So depending great glution. And the nice thing about it is that it
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  got to be so popular that we we spun it out of Leader Bank into
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  its own company, and I think a nationwide and a lot of banks across
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  the country, a lot of Boston as well have have now become clients of
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  that bockware and are using it as a cross selling to do their client base
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  to get the positive and obviously clans all the wrong customers. So was that
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  was that something you guys had in mind when you started building? So I
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  think as a company, as a guy, spent a lot of time and
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  companies doing software development like architecting for the things you might build for just me,
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  like I would hack some things together, tie some things with bailing wire,
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  you know, internally, and when you're building something for use by third
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  parties, there is usually like quite a bit more different architecture. You might
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  take, different decisions you might make. So I'm curious that was something that
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  was um, you know, in scope or contemplated when you started building that,
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  or that was just like, hey, this thing's really useful and other
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  people could use it. I just I think initially it was sort of a
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  solution that we were going to try to offer our own client base. Um.
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  And as we started to promote it more and more, I think decided
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  to get a little bit more noticeability in the in the marketplaces from other banks
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  or other um, competing institutions that and decided to take it throng own life,
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  if you will. I think that's when the bank isn't spin it out
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  and have it be its own separate company and really try to cross sell and
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  uh and and make it own. So it sort of took its own life.
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  And uh well, I think initially it was just going to be a
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  vehicle that we could offer our client base to make um, you know,
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  add more value to it, uh flop a problem and caxture deposits and obviously
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  um you know, just not a cross all of the service. But um,
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  but yeah, it was a huge demand nation wide. I mean that's
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  what it really was. Um, the Escrow really took I think it took
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  it up to the next level because there's so much escrow services. Yeah,
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  that's just not a typical escrow conference tree deposit. There's ten thirty one xcrow
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  escrow. There's municipalities that have escrow account for various funding. There's attorneys that
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  have various you know for states, and various other function so many different verticals
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  under the escrow umbrella that we could cater to UM and new the escrow with
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  the great platform to deliverage. So ever we use a friendly UM and so
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  I coverage anyone to reach out to the bank to uh learn more about it
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  for their their own benefit or you can. Yeah. So second question similar
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  lines, but how do you think about the build by partner discussion. Here's
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  a case where you built which is you know, unique and you know,
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  but you've also have done partnerships with FinTechs, I know even and it's you
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  know, customer for many years. And obviously I've always kind of laughed that
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  the fintech bank partnership is a new thing. I was like, well,
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  the core systems have been around for quite a while and most most of them
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  are essentially fintech companies that that have been you know, purchase software. How
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  do you think about that when do we do something like build a escrow or
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  a z rat that's like unique in the market. When do we partner with
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  someone like it Encino or another player in the fintech space it has capabilities we
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  need. When do we just go buy something off the shelf? How do
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  you how do you kind of think through that question? I mean I guess
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  when UM, you know, when when we decided to evaluate the commercial side
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  of the bank UM and the workflow and seeing we did discuss this developing an
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  internal stopware or internal workflow that could be automated to help with the commercial loan
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  process. UM. At the same time, you start kind of weighing out
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  and it started seeing within the market, like to see if they're the solution
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  out there that the cost benefit, the time that we've got to invest and
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  we have to do it. And in sort of doing that restart just to
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  kind of get idea, we came across the Encino UM and we were one
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  of the early UM blocking you know early uses that they all doing sino ut
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  for ten years and I think we've joined them six plus years ago, so
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  they were only you know, three or four years old when we signed onto
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  them. And the love theories I think Encino had was that it was developed
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  and built with commercial lenders helping design it that really understood how a commercial transaction
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  with multiple layers, complexities, guaranteurs, sponsorships, multiple pieces of collateral work
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  and they understood that workflow and we guess we're very impressed with how it operated.
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  And that was the fastest solution. We were growing very fast and the
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  commercial side of the bank at that giving time, and it was it was
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  like a perfect solution that we got on board and sort of solved the pain
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  we were going through growing that bank quickly and and signed on and h and
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  again after about a year of work really getting the system onboarded and again it's
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  it's it's a can be a painful process, just like any change in habit.
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  But once the investment everybody a year was made, we really started to
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  see the fruits of our labor and the efficiency of the workflow. And this
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  was all pre pandemic and um I think it was the best solution to solve
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  the need we had at the time. And it's been a long term investment,
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  but we're very happy with the fintech partnership, the enhancements. As the
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  evolution of commercial lending constantly changes and the landscape of banking changers and different parameters
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  such as analytical reporting, pricing, model data. That's all the stuff that
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  commercial lenders. We do it every day, and the SEON make using their
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  program you serve the need. So it's been a great, great parmenter.
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  Let me ask you made the comment like it took a while, but then
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  you saw the fruits of your labor. I think was the phrase with you
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  know, efficiency of the workflow. One of the things I've seen from a
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  number of partnerships is a kind of like I want, I want to say
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  poor excuse because that's kind of a mean way to say it, but that
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  sometimes the results don't actually live up to the expectations. And there's a kind
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  of like there's a defining the right partner and there's actually getting this thing deployed
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  in your workflow, people trained and get it taking advantage of it effectively,
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  right, And I feel like many projects fall down on the second part.
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  They may find a great partner, but they don't actually get the most out
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  of it in the end. And I'm curious if you have advice, I'm
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  like, what what you think is useful in making a project successful and actually
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  reaping the rewards of what you see versus finding a partnership and then it kind
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  of like sits on the side or doesn't get used or doesn't actually result in
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  the kind of benefits you're looking for. That's a good question, you know,
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  and we're all all with them in the mindset if if if junk goes
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  in un kind of come out of it. So if you're not fully utilizing
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  it correctly, efficiently, accurately, you're not kind of get the benefit out
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  of it. So, for example, one of our goal old were to
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  have all of our financial due diligence documents, all of our annual financial documents
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  that we collecting customers, all of our legal documents that we collect, any
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  covenant test thing. We wanted all that to be housed on the system.
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  So my goal was that when we get audited, like every bank does,
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  that someone can just go on there and all that data will be in there,
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  index correctly labeled, correctly in the correct spots, and believe it or
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  not, that is the has to battle with getting things in the system tiled
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  correctly consistently. That it was a nice organized library if you will, that
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  someone could easily go into and that is just a labor investment in making sure,
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  we had team. We had a team of folks and we still have
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  that team ongoing because it's just an opposing ongoing platform we use. That is
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  their function is to download, upload, title, index these documents that we
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  get documents in every day on deals and that's their primary function. That's one
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  of the primary function is to make sure that's being done to systemly. So
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  when we get audited everything, the worst thing is that can ecking hear from
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  an auditor, we can't find it in the system. Job was driving crazy
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  and it took a couple you know, a couple of years for everything that'll
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  like cycle through as you get data. Right. But now that we're pat
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  that pointing over the hump um, we've had seller remote reviews from independent auditors,
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  internal auditors and really have liked the system, very used, the friendly
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  everything is now organized, consistent. We had a quality control check to make
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  sure that everything that should be there is there. So those are some of
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  the um the UM I guess the functionality of the responsibility that we need to
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  have someone a volted fun but because without that, you know, lenders or
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  certain credit analysts may put things in different spots, They may title something a
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  little bit differently, So that's that was a little bit of the profit we
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  want to putting place. It's such a key point because I think so often
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  when we deploy a technology, there's like not a enough for thought or ongoing
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  iteration on how do we use it? How do we what's a name?
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  I mean something that's simple, it's like a naming convention or a foldering mature.
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  Where do we How are we going to use this tool for our workflow?
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  So we're all doing it the same way, because what you end up
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  as often is like every small team does it a little bit differently, and
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  then you're trying to well, that's that's what we're dimo avoiding. I can
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  remember sitting in our conference rooms where we all used to come in with our
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  folders of deal right tact resurns or any deals, fiece and all that stuff,
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  and we were trying to get away from that, and we wanted everything
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  to be put into you know, And I remember the first few meetings with
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  the CEO and right, and it's really easy to say, let me just
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  pull up the tax returning Yeah, we can look at it right here.
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  But we remember saying we stopped it one day and we said, we're gonna
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  force ourselves to use it within Encino and find it within And it was painful.
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  Don't get me wrong. I was a lender, so I would I
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  said, lend me to show. I just want to show. But we
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  actually took the time and went through some rederation, then some some pain point.
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  Now it's very fluid. Everyone knows internally how it worked where it is,
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  and it's just made it a better program, a better experience. And
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  now we we have a lot of folks in different departments too on boarded onto
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  Encino, so we've integrated it with a lot of different departments or efficiencies,
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  communication notification, right down to accounting to deposit offs. So it's um we
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  rely on it very heavily. Now very cool. But I had two more
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  areas I wanted to dive into. Then the next one I kind of wanted
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  to hit was how you guys responded during the pandemic to the PPP apportunities.
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  I remember talking to a lot of lenders that either availability of CAP through the
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  program, or more importantly than like rapid changing nature of the way it was
• 17:03
  going to work. What became a challenge of just being able to actually execute
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  you might have demand or desire, but the ability to actually put a system
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  in place and take advantage of that and and serve the community was challenging.
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  And I know you guys were pretty big player in PPP, so talk about
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  how you we aandage acts. I think it's a it's a pretty interesting story
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  how you guys actually we're able to console those those needs of the consumers.
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  It was no if it's a good good topic. UM and UM, you
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  know, hats off to our our senior management with the support of the board,
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  you know, really gave us, you know, full, you know,
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  full support to do what we use to do from a technology standpoint to
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  UM to take advantage of the program as best we could for our clients and
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  then open up the door to non bank clients take advantage of and and help
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  them. You know. So really what we did is UM it was we
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  knew we were going to have a high volume A lot of banks did.
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  We were on the early ones that we were. We were lucky enough with
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  our key supporting, our software engineers that are on FAT that we were able
• 18:04
  to develop a workflow for PPP customers, ended all the website in house within
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  if anyone knows that about PPT. The information was being rolled out late hours
• 18:18
  days before was going live, so we have the ability and to really pivot
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  and have to make a decision quickly, and we were able to develop a
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  whole workflow for pp eldibility a question answered application. Everything was done online of
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  course, and then eventually as we got that off the ground and launched,
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  we took us to the next level and we created technology to help us with
• 18:44
  the guarantee securing process, which really was the name of the game back then.
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  As you were on with the time POC it was only so much money
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  and we needed to have an efficient way to make sure that we were getting
• 18:53
  guarantee secured and we helped with the help of our IKE department developed a technology
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  along you know and UH and the SBA was great giving us to support them.
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  We needed to help us do that UM and develop the software that we
• 19:07
  were able to get through a lot more guarantees than we have a wad of
• 19:10
  Without that technology, UM and without those guarantees, there was no no mull
• 19:15
  so UM and that was it. That was it the face reality of it,
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  and so we were very We were one of the first lenders we to
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  give a pepe P checkout in Boston. UM. If we google us,
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  there's a picture of myself and the CEO giving out the first check UM and
• 19:33
  UM. So it was you know really UM. We were signed the nick
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  An Impact right away and we knew that we could turn things around quickly.
• 19:41
  We had pulled in resources from all over the all over the bank, and
• 19:47
  all over the country actually because we have we have folks working in different areas,
• 19:51
  training on underwriting, branding, on security and guarantees, customer service.
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  So it was really was a whole bank effort. UM. The technology was
• 20:00
  key for workflow efficiencies and UH. And then also when it came down to
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  the pigiment process, which was the other side of it, was we had
• 20:08
  to develop a whole workflow for PPP pigodness, which we had done UM.
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  And again this was all during a pandemic kind so again everything had to be
• 20:18
  automated. Docky signed he's signing documents UH, and we did. We did
• 20:23
  it all very quickly and as the program change, because we had everything in
• 20:30
  house, we get tivot very quickly on strategy. We were one of the
• 20:33
  few banks in Boston UM that hopened up our doors to non Leader Bank client,
• 20:40
  and we were doing deals across the country for you know, I did
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  the small I did a seven hundred kifty dollars fifty long I mean up up
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  to the lige of dollar amounts. So we we didn't say no to anyone,
• 20:52
  even if they didn't have a client. We thought it was our our
• 20:56
  time and our mission to help anyone and everyone that we could and hopefully in
• 21:00
  and buying out of it. But at the same time, it was the
• 21:03
  what we we did. The nice thing about Leader Bank was we became very
• 21:07
  popular to at the end of the program, folks maybe not don't know what
• 21:12
  MDI. We're considered a minority to pustitution and STA At the end of the
• 21:18
  program had carved out X amount of millions dollars for MDI related banks that could
• 21:23
  continue lending PPP dollars when everyone else could. So as the program sided to
• 21:30
  expire for other banks, were Bank was one out of two players in Boston
• 21:36
  that had access. And we're still keeping the program open um and so we've
• 21:41
  got popular very very quickly at the very end because everyone knew that Leader Bank
• 21:45
  had access to scour and UM and we could have should we could have shut
• 21:49
  down the program. We could have said, look, you know what we're
• 21:52
  we've done thousands and thousands and thousands. We didn't. We say it opened
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  right to the very end um. You know, you get keen that's exhausted,
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  working twenty four hours a day, different lemonades a week. Everyone had
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  the picky, but no, we filed through and and end up being really
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  a program and we pick a lot of knights relationship out of it, which
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  is you know, which is of added bonus and loyal following from it.
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  I wanted to ask, it's interesting to me that you know, you get
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  two examples here where you kind of built something internally. I think a great
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  example of like focusing those resources on places where the solution and market isn't some
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  people focusing on we got to build our own X rays. Not really you
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  have limited resource focused on where you have can really differentiation with the services done
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  there aren't aren't what you need. But you also seem to have developed a
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  speed to execute or I mean PPP is maybe a hyper example of that,
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  but even around I think in the zert And that's that's interesting because I think
• 22:52
  many institutions struggle to like committees and oversight, and you know it's like they
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  may have the idea of, hey, we can do this better if we
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  built some software to optimize the PPP, but it would be you know,
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  I worked, I worked a large software companies. Soon they go, oh,
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  we'll have that out in nineteen, in eighteen months and then we'll really
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  be twenty four, and go, I don't have twenty four. I can't.
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  Like we explained, we have a lot of different examples for a lot
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  of different uh could be products that we developed or other partnerships that we maybe
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  had partnered with other companies gone how quickly we can execute our part So how
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  do you do it? What's the secret? You know? I think local
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  the digiton making has been key to it UM and that's on across the spectrum
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  on you know, from approving a deal to you know, approving a contract,
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  uh for for a vendor or a fintech that we're trying to humble it
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  but having access the keynest digiton majors um you know, technology has helped with
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  that respect to you know, it's a Friday afternoon and I need to help
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  on a quick zoom call with our CEO and president to approve something it's they're
• 24:03
  willing and able to and I think that's that's half the battle, is making
• 24:08
  sure that someone's willing to be accessible even if like if it's odd times.
• 24:12
  UM we do have UM uh we have a great support team that had you
• 24:21
  know, I always say there's a work life balance, but we have folks
• 24:25
  that are just very uh goal oriented driven. UM. We have we have
• 24:30
  a keeam actually that work uh in India for us as well that the you
• 24:34
  know, related to the bank that helps us a little bit of additional ammunition
• 24:38
  for app offs of support for threatened past that we're doing so UM and again
• 24:45
  I'll stay at EREM. During the PTFE program, uh, we had so
• 24:48
  much volume that we had folks and India operation helping support and underwrite EPT long
• 24:56
  from the back end as well. As we were sleeping, I would wake
• 25:00
  up and check my phone and I would see how many loans got processed overnight.
• 25:04
  UM. So it really made us a twenty four hour shop and it
• 25:08
  still does. UM. So we we've leveraged UM that operation where we can,
• 25:15
  but at the end of the day, it's multi The thirdre making has
• 25:18
  really in key access to the key decision makers. UM had made us very
• 25:23
  effective UM. And I think that separates us and not only in UM,
• 25:29
  you know, in partnering with FinTechs or other than they're but like even on
• 25:33
  just on deal making with like loans, and I deleted the answer big loan.
• 25:37
  I need this Friday afternoon. I need an answer, a very fluid
• 25:42
  and I think that's where the larger institutions maybe just the different layers or different
• 25:48
  complexity and their structures, they just they can't move it just not. We
• 25:52
  want to ask one more question on this, which I think the idea of
• 25:56
  local decision making to me is makes a lot of sense. You push the
• 25:57
  decision making down to the like you know, often that person has the most
• 26:00
  information to make the decision. But I feel like culturally in institutions, it
• 26:04
  can be hard to get people to accept that because often there's like more risks
• 26:10
  for having taken you know, it's riskier for you to make the decision than
• 26:12
  it is to defer up the chain. And I feel like, if you
• 26:15
  really want to change thestititional behavior, you've got to make it less risky.
• 26:18
  And I'm curious how you do that. How do you get people at lower
• 26:21
  levels in the area or in distributed places, to actually say it feels safe
• 26:23
  here, to make a decision, to push forward a little bit, to
• 26:27
  call the CEO if that's what it takes, or to say yes on this
• 26:30
  application, if that's what it takes. When you know, I think in
• 26:33
  many, particularly financial institiutions, there's a hesitancy to embrace even if there's are
• 26:37
  both who want local decision making, Often the structures in the institution end up
• 26:41
  saying, well, but yeah, but if you screw up the decisions,
• 26:42
  you're gonna get a lot of trouble. So it's safe for you not to
• 26:45
  do that. And I'm curious how you how you get the culture to actually
• 26:48
  be accepting local decision making and embracing up that as opposed to just I think
• 26:53
  all the last couple of years we've we've focused on that more because we bank
• 26:57
  even during the pandemic, we hire the number was we doing during the pandemic
• 27:02
  in the middle of we were hiring. We had about one hundred and forty
• 27:04
  people that we hired during the pandemic. So it became, you know,
• 27:08
  Leader Bank was really grown from our employee base um and what we cluckily we
• 27:14
  did as senior management was. It was communication with Keith and UH pushing during
• 27:19
  the pandemic when we were in the office and we started meeting very frequently,
• 27:23
  if not once twice a week, all senior managers, so we all knew
• 27:29
  what each other we're doing UM and from our executive management, they were able
• 27:33
  to clearly share with us what the expectation or the goals were, or the
• 27:37
  intent was and give some some direction. And I think that allowed all of
• 27:42
  us to know how to execute and know what had to be escalated or what
• 27:48
  was what we could execute as at our department. That's that's something that we
• 27:53
  still continue to do. We do now a weekly to senior manage from meeting
• 28:00
  where CEO, President, all departments share on what's happening in their own interview
• 28:07
  with proofs, and it gives opportunity for UM UH executive management to share any
• 28:12
  of their UH updated goals where VID the goals and UM. I think I
• 28:18
  think that's really helped because without that knowledge of where senior management and executive management
• 28:23
  want to go, and it's really hot for us on a day to data
• 28:27
  manage our own victims. UM. Yeah, So knowing some of that data
• 28:32
  and knowing it so UM consistently every week. It allows us to run much
• 28:37
  more efficiently. So if we were if we were meeting quarterly like in some
• 28:41
  to you do a quarterly you know, managers meeting, or you'd have to
• 28:45
  be checking all the time because things change and you know, especially over the
• 28:48
  last week in painting, a lot of a lot of things changed and um,
• 28:55
  you know, a lot of questions wouldn't be getting at. But with
• 28:56
  us, we were meeting so frequently that um, we were all right on
• 29:00
  the fingers, are right on the pult with what the bank expectation, the
• 29:03
  goals were, and where we needed to be un certain deals or certain contracts
• 29:08
  or or whatnot. So I chalk it up to your communication. And that's
• 29:12
  something that we've really invested in, not only amongst the senior management level,
• 29:17
  but christ employee base is trying to make sure that the whole company knows where
• 29:22
  the bank are telling and what the goals are, because that's something way to
• 29:26
  really move the ship. And as um we've gotten a sword by verge from
• 29:32
  so many people now outside the state, that's even more important to make sure
• 29:34
  that the culture is there, make sure folks know what lead a bank is
• 29:40
  doing, what's happening from the financial helping net to the bank to what the
• 29:45
  goals of the bank are. And I think that's really been something that we're
• 29:48
  trying to just to drill home more and more and we're signed to see the
• 29:51
  benefits of that that we're signed to see all the articles going in the same
• 29:55
  direction and again and it's been working, so so we've got to continue doing
• 30:00
  down doubling down on that. Excellent. Well man, man, There's three
• 30:04
  questions I ask everybody the end of this podcast, and I think we're about
• 30:07
  the time for that, so you're ready for him. Yeah, here we
• 30:11
  go. Number one, what's the best piece of career advice you've ever gotten?
• 30:15
  I would say the best career advice that I've I've gotten was to whatever
• 30:21
  I was doing, master it, master it, be excellent at it.
• 30:26
  So if that was, for example, my job was to file document,
• 30:32
  be the best file document price than there was me, clean, organized,
• 30:37
  deficient. UM. That was one thing and that was early on, even
• 30:41
  before I got on the bank, and that was he's the best you can
• 30:45
  at whatever role with it. UM. I will say the second keys you
• 30:48
  know, advice that someone can give me one time was just focus on the
• 30:53
  now. You know a lot of times I see in different careers that people
• 30:57
  are so quickly worry to get to the next step, and it's so focus
• 31:03
  on the next step the knock. Focus been on the current step of the
• 31:04
  ring. And believe it or not, the current stupp of the ring is
• 31:08
  so important to the fundamentals and the foundation of their career. But sometimes they
• 31:12
  don't even know it. Like the stuff they're gonna learn in that first job,
• 31:17
  whether it be like a credit analyst one or two or whatever, whatever
• 31:19
  role you're in, that information you can carry throughout your whole career. But
• 31:23
  if you if you don't have that lockdown, you're gonna have cracks and your
• 31:27
  foundation the rector of your career because you didn't really truly have that foundation security.
• 31:32
  And um that's in finance. But that's ah, that's something that's uh
• 31:37
  and I share that was our team down is the master what you're doing,
• 31:41
  learn it. Don't worry about the whe The next step is right away.
• 31:45
  You'll if you'll guess, there will come. But um, just try to
• 31:48
  and that's h and that could do that's the newer generation sometimes um, but
• 31:53
  um uh that's a big give avites to all new new credit analysts and new
• 31:57
  boat summoning echoing Abraham Lincoln. Whatever you're gonna be, be a good one.
• 32:02
  But the kind of focus on the now and be good at whatever it
• 32:05
  is you're you're being asked to. It is a simple. But sometimes the
• 32:08
  best advice is simple. But yeah, not easy. Yeah. Uh.
• 32:13
  Second question, I've got what's the best piece of advice you've gotten or given
• 32:16
  about the banking the consumer banking space in general. Diversify the verse? Yeah,
• 32:23
  diverse by and and you know the timing of diversification is key over the
• 32:30
  last you know, a couple of weeks, what's happening in the in the
• 32:31
  consum of banking world and and what non fungural bank. Um. But diversification
• 32:37
  I think is key. And um, you know all the clients that we
• 32:40
  have, we always talk about their versification. It doesn't mean diversification, Um,
• 32:46
  I mean you can't still be in the same steca like for example,
• 32:49
  if you're a real sambassor doesn't mean you can't have more than one building.
• 32:52
  It's it's sometimes it's um spreading the risk out amongst every type of building or
• 32:58
  different types of industry streets. So don't have all office, maybe have some
• 33:01
  multifamily as, some office as some mixed use. Um. That that level
• 33:07
  of differ replication. And then obviously on liquidity, UM, you always want
• 33:12
  to have a good good replication. So the versification is key. It's talent
• 33:16
  um and um and it's really been the name of the game especially and come
• 33:20
  to serve up in the last couple of weeks. Um. But the reverstivation
• 33:23
  is always prudent. And even in our side of the world and lending banking,
• 33:30
  it's still the versification. You know, we don't want to have you
• 33:32
  know, when it comes to borrowing a borrowing client, we want to have
• 33:36
  a lot of borrowing clients, not just one big one. You know,
• 33:38
  we don't. We want to have a lot of the public customer. It's
• 33:40
  not one big one. So um, the versification all right, And the
• 33:46
  last question, what's one bold prediction for the future. You know, well,
• 33:51
  I'll answer in two ways. One is on the on the pication.
• 33:53
  On on the real estate side, I think you know, um, I
• 33:58
  we like a stickure what we know, so we're sticking to the money that
• 34:00
  we know well and with that it gives us be able to predict that our
• 34:06
  assets they're going to be taked mean that we're lending in markets that were we've
• 34:08
  lent in for years, We know them, we have feet on the ground
• 34:12
  in those faces. And I get this comfort that where we know our portfolio
• 34:15
  when our lending practice leaders will be satan thumb um, you know. And
• 34:22
  I think on the on the flip side of lending is like on on the
• 34:27
  UM employee side, is that the hybrid workflow or the hybrid UH employee day
• 34:37
  is the future. UM. I like to think that the old days of
• 34:43
  corporate America where everyone's in the offers, then it's like five days a week
• 34:45
  in full days. Um, I've got to come back. I don't think
• 34:50
  they have a will, and I feel I actually feel bad for a lot
• 34:52
  of the people that are now entering the corporate world that now we're going to
• 34:55
  truly experience that. But I think that it's the the way of the world,
• 35:00
  and I think that we have to embrace that, and we've done a
• 35:05
  good job of breaking it, but I think if we have to continue to
• 35:07
  embrace it but also keep in mind trying to make sure that the connectivity of
• 35:13
  employees and the culture of the bank, they impact. So that's kind of
• 35:16
  I think going to be the new challenge in the future of it's hobbit make
• 35:21
  sure that the culture across the country they connected and whatnot. There. I
• 35:29
  appreciate your making the time. This is a lot of fun and I always
• 35:32
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