Operate Podcast

This conversation has been a long time coming, as Zac Lyons and I have been talking about Jobs-To-Be-Done and its applicability to how startups identify and build the most important products.  It was so fun to record our discussion, and you'll find me in the zone during many parts of it, as it's a topic that has become near and dear to me. Zac has developed very cool tools at his firm, Agile Innov...

  The heart of a community banker is a real thing. I remember it from my childhood, growing up in a community where my family was involved in the local community bank. My grandfather's and father's friends were bankers and they were passionate about the community and what the bank could do to help it thrive. Not everyone has had that experience, but Brad Bolton has, and he lives it by example ever...

  I really enjoyed my conversation with Samantha Berg , the Chief HR Officer at Choice Bank . She's spent most of her career there and has grown and advanced inside of the bank, and embodies its culture. She also has a fresh and relevant perspective as an HR leader, and shared a lot of those thoughts and ideas in this episode. Choice is a progressive bank with one of the most active banking-as-a-s...

In this episode, Heath Fountain , CEO of Colony Bank , delves into the world of community banking and how Colony Bank has navigated growth and innovation amidst the current economic uncertainty. He discusses the importance of incorporating technology to create efficiency for the bank and better experiences for customers, the need to redefine community beyond geographical boundaries, and the role o...

Greg Ohlendorf is the President and CEO of First Community Bank & Trust in Beecher, Illinois. He has over 35 years of experience in community banking and is known for his active leadership and advocacy for community banks. Greg has served as both a board director for the ICBA and his state banking association, and he is a vocal advocate for digital transformation in banking and collaboration with...

  Zach Duke is the founder and CEO of Finosec , a company that provides a governance automation platform for financial institutions. They offer automated solutions, relentless protection, continuous monitoring, and actionable insights to help financial institutions save time and enhance exam preparedness. Their platform is designed to simplify cybersecurity management and reduce cybersecurity liab...

  Ian White and I have known each other for nearly 20 years, and intertwined through several parallel entrepreneurial adventures. I was excited to finally record one of our conversations and let him talk about Koffie Financial , the company he co-founded a few years ago, that is disrupting the $100B+ commercial truck insurance market. We also talked about some of his prior entrepreneurial endeavor...

  It's been an absolute pleasure to be alongside Jacob Ruytenbeek for his founder's journey since the very early days of SailPlan . His passion for the maritime industry was evident from the moment we met, and then combining that with a curiosity and openness to the customers and their biggest challenges, it was easy to be convinced that he'd find his way. I'm so glad to be able to record this con...

Nicky Senyard takes me on the journey of her career as a successful entrepreneur and how that passion led her to do it again for a new customer segment in the financial services industry. Her company, Fintel Connect , is at the intersection of 2 major trends in the digitization of marketing and banking.  Since we both work a lot with community banks, we also discuss the state of digital products a...

  Nathan Baumeister is a co-founder and the CEO of ZSuite , and it was a pleasure to have him on the podcast. We talked about the founding of ZSuite within a community bank, and how it's now working with dozens of banks to help them with commercial escrow accounts, and also expanding bank deposits as a result of it. It's been a pleasure to get to work with him and his team, and become an investor...

It is so fun to get introduced to awesome new people, and I had a strong feeling that Teddy Mitrosilis and I would have a good conversation and connection. We did and I think you'll enjoy his stories and ideas thoroughly. (Thanks for the introduction, Mallory Maske !) We talked about his journey to becoming an entrepreneur, how the market wanted something different from him than he initially antic...

Rex Salisbury has a great story as his path into venture capital and transition from Andreessen Horowitz to founding Cambrian . It was fun recording our conversation so he could tell that story and inspire others who can now consider other paths to get there. His development of a community of fintech founders was definitely rooted in great timing and his personal passion, and also led him to reali...

  Charles Potts is my favorite bank technology historian. And he happens to also be my partner in BankTech Ventures . This was a conversation I wanted to have and record for a long time, and I'm excited to share it. Charles is currently the Chief Innovation Officer of the ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America) and it is a perfect role for him, as he is part banker, part technologist, part...

This episode was an absolute treat. Eric Sprink is what I call a human energizer bunny. He demonstrates abundance to his peers in community banking as he’s taught dozens of others how to do banking as a service right, which we talk about in the conversation. Eric is the CEO of Coastal Community Bank in the greater Seattle area, and yet his community bank now supports millions of customer accounts...

It was great to have Wayne Miller on the podcast and record our conversation, which wasn't far from a typical one we have all the time. Wayne recently joined ICBA to continue and expand the great work he's been doing with bank technology innovation and startups, and he's a key enabler of the future of community banking. Wayne and I talked a lot about what is on banks' agendas for the new year and...

  Brent Jackson saw the opportunity for Torpago inside the finance and accounting organization of a prior company. I always enjoy when a founder just sees the opportunity and goes for it. He has a good focus on customers and ensuring he has happy ones with stories of high impact. And while he's in a hypercompetitive market of corporate spend management, he's carved out a great niche and continues...

It was a really fun first episode to start the year. Ron Shevlin from Cornerstone Advisors had a lot of great thoughts and insights to share and we covered a lot of ground. Ron talked about the strategic imperative for community banks and had a number of very clear action items banks can take to have more success in the coming years.  A few areas we discussed: 1. Financial products vs. services 2....

  Serial entrepreneur, Howard Makler, has been growing Innovation Refunds at 200% per quarter this year. Few companies ever do that quarter over quarter, as the numbers get big very quickly. It's been amazing to watch, and I was thrilled to have him join me to talk about the experience, his personal and leadership philosophies and what's unique about this opportunity vs. others he's built. He also...

David Wexler joined me to discuss a critical innovation and transformation topic in banking - integrations. This has been an expensive and painful area for banks and their technology partners for a long time, and few in community banking have embraced integration platforms, and that's slowed down their ability to digitally transform. I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with David over the las...

Zack DeFord joined me to discuss his experiences as a lifelong gamer, and how his younger brother was bullied while playing online games. Zack's desire to make gaming safer and more fun for his brother led him to start Smerf , and that authenticity has served him well as he's built the company. Zack and his co-founder, Ben, have developed Smerf to be a critical identity and social layer across gam...

Cat Berman and I met several years ago, so it was fun to finally have a recorded conversation. She is inspiring in her leadership of CNote and bringing more impact to the financial services world through the products that they offer. Community financial institutions have impact in their communities. It's central to who they are as businesses. They engage and support the people where they are based...

Jason Yeh and I had a super fun chat about founders, how to help them better tell their stories, and some great examples he's seen. We also talked about the changes in the venture capital landscape in the last year, and what's likely ahead. He's spent a lot of time internationally as well, especially Brazil, so we discussed his experiences there. Jason was early at MLB Advanced Media 15 years ago,...

  Bradley Leimer and I were destined to meet, and we finally did in NY earlier this year at Finovate, where we were on a panel together entitled "How Community Banks & Credit Unions Can Embrace Change to Compete In A Digital World." We both determined that we'd have a lot to talk about after the panel, so we decided to record it. Bradley is a career innovator and fintech champion. He is the co-fou...

This episode was a bit of a "turn the tables" one, as Kiah Haslett is an accomplished and energetic journalist who covers the banking industry. She's done so for 10 years, and you can find her at Bank Director, where she's Managing Editor. Kiah has covered the full spectrum of banking from policy, strategy, trends, technology and M&A. She has a unique vantage point for what’s happening in banking...

Mark Forbis joined me on the podcast and we covered a lot of ground about culture, innovation and the history of technology in banking. He is the former Chief Technology Officer of Jack Henry, one of the largest technology companies in the banking industry, and he’s also a current Board Director at Incredible Bank in Wisconsin and Citizens Bank in Arkansas, as well as companies like Teslar Softwar...