Travillian Next

Everyone's talking about Banking-as-a-Service. Almost no one has actually built it — and even fewer have done it twice. Patrick Slain has. In this episode, the Stearns Bank fintech lead sits down with host Amber Buker to get real about what building a BaaS program takes: why it's a six-year commitment, how to keep it aligned with the bank's risk appetite, what separates a great fintech...

Stablecoins are moving from the headlines into the banking system, and community banks are paying attention. In this episode of Travillian Next, Alex Treece, CEO and Co-Founder of Stablecore, and Branden Hansen, President at Bank of Utah, join Travillian's Keith Daly to discuss why now is the moment for community banks to act. They cover the GENIUS Act and clearer regulation, a stablecoin mark...

Bank regulation has shifted fast over the last 18 months, and Ian Maloney, Chief Policy Officer at the American Fintech Council, joins Keith Daly on Travillian Next to break down what it means for bank compliance and risk teams. They get into why the prudential regulators are more coordinated, how reputation risk left the exam handbooks in favor of material financial risk, and the first CAMELS rat...

Steve Plunk was the OCC examiner at the center of the Penn Square Bank collapse, one of the most consequential bank failures in American history. He sits down with Travillian's Amber Buker to revisit the oil-fueled bank that fooled the biggest names in banking, the one line on the balance sheet that brought it down, and where that same blind spot is hiding in banks today. A special conversatio...

Brent Beardall, President and CEO of WaFd, Inc., joins Brian Love to tell the story of his rise from a bank file room to the CEO seat. Partway through, he gets surprised on camera by Simone Lagomarsino, the former CEO of Luther Burbank Savings, the bank WaFd acquired. The two cover leadership, the WaFd and Luther Burbank merger, surviving the 2023 banking crisis, and why banking is still a noble p...

Travillian's bank & fintech recap from May 2026: Amber Buker, Chief Research Officer, and Brian Love, Head of Banking & Fintech Search, recap the month's biggest banking and fintech conferences (Finovate, D.A. Davidson, S&P Global, and Alloy Labs in Nashville). The honest, occasionally goofy conversation covers young bank executive talent, succession planning, stablecoin and to...

Rhinebeck Bank President and CEO Matthew Smith joins Travillian Next for a candid conversation about leading a 160-year-old community bank into its next chapter. Six months into the role at the $1.3 billion publicly traded bank in Poughkeepsie, New York, Matt shares how he is thinking about balancing 1950s-style community service with 2026 technology, building a culture of diversity of thought, an...

In this Part 2, on-location episode of Travillian Next, host Amber Buker (Chief Research Officer at Travillian) sits down with Heather Luck, EVP & Chief Financial Officer at Five Star Bank, for a candid, documentary-style conversation filmed inside the bank itself. Heather opens up about the financial discipline behind one of the country's fastest-growing community banks. She walks through...

In this special, on-location episode of Travillian Next, host Amber Buker (Chief Research Officer at Travillian) sits down with Michael Rizzo, EVP & Chief Banking Officer at Five Star Bank, for a candid, documentary-style conversation filmed inside the bank itself. Michael only half-jokingly calls Five Star "a sales organization masquerading as a bank," and that mindset runs through everything...

Most banks want the casino loan. Few understand the full scope of what tribal banking actually looks like, and what it takes to do it right. In this episode of Travillian Next, host Amber Buker, Chief Research Officer at Travillian, sits down with Mike Lettig, Senior Managing Director and Group Head of Native American Financial Services at Huntington Bank, and Jackson Brossy, Vice President of Nat...

What does it take to build a $9 billion community bank and stay independent doing it? Joe Dively, Chairman and CEO of First Mid Bank & Trust, breaks down the M&A strategy, leadership philosophy, and culture-first approach behind one of the Midwest's most extraordinary community banking stories — including a dividend streak dating back to 1879, eight acquisitions built on decade-long re...

Scott Hildenbrand, Head of Depository Fixed Income at Piper Sandler, joins Travillian Next for a conversation on balance sheet strategy and the forces shaping banking in 2026. In this episode, Travillian’s Brian Love and Andrew Liesch sit down with Hildenbrand to discuss what he’s hearing in bank boardrooms across the country. From the disconnect between bank earnings and valuations to execution s...

Community banks widely recognize the value of diversity in the boardroom, yet many institutions still rely on the same limited recruiting networks when searching for new directors. On the latest episode of Travillian Next, Amber Buker, Chief Research Officer at Travillian, sits down with Jennifer Docherty, Senior FIG & Capital Markets Strategist at Performance Trust Capital Partners and Co-Fou...

Community banks are rethinking compensation as competition for top producers intensifies. In this episode of Travillian Next, Brian Love of Travillian and incentive strategist Mike Higgins discuss how banks are moving beyond subjective year-end bonus structures and toward performance-driven incentive plans. They explore the “Bank of One” model, the importance of linking pay to profitability, and w...

Keith Daly , Principal of Banking & Fintech Search at Travillian , sits down with Chuck Nabhan , Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens , to unpack fintech valuations, AI disruption, and the regulatory “moat” protecting core banking technology. Drawing on nearly two decades of equity research, Nabhan breaks down why AI hype is distorting fintech valuations, which parts of th...

Dimitar Karaivanov, President & CEO of Community Bank System, and C.K. Lee, President & CEO of InterBank, discuss how Wall Street experience translates into community banking leadership. As community banks face rising complexity, tighter margins, and heightened expectations from boards and regulators, leadership backgrounds are evolving. Karaivanov and Lee share how bank strategy, talent d...

Pathward President Anthony Sharett joins Travillian Next host Amber Buker to share how a culture-first talent strategy is driving innovation, employee engagement, and financial inclusion. The conversation explores Pathward’s “talent anywhere” approach, curiosity-driven hiring, and how strong culture and regulatory discipline work together to prepare for 2030. Timestamps: 00:00 – The journey from l...

Community banks are no longer on the sidelines of digital assets. Keith Daly of Travillian speaks with Caitlin Long, Founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, and Shawn Main of Vantage Bank Texas about how tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and interoperable payment rails are becoming real banking infrastructure. They break down the GENIUS Act, atomic settlement, and a new bank-led consortium designed to gi...

Succession planning is one of the most important decisions a bank will ever make. In this episode, Starion Bank CEO Craig Larson and President Dave Rogstad join Brian Love, Head of Banking & Fintech at Travillian, to share the real story behind Starion’s leadership transition. What began as a national executive search revealed that the bank’s next president had been developing internally all a...

2025 was a rollercoaster year for community banks navigating the talent market. Early optimism gave way to hesitation as uncertainty, M&A activity, and competitive pressure reshaped hiring decisions across the industry. As the year came to a close, momentum began to return. In this year-end conversation, Travillian reflects on what the past year revealed about community bank talent strategy an...

Bank M&A isn’t about speed anymore. It’s about preparation. In this episode of the Travillian Next podcast, investment bankers from Janney Montgomery Scott and D.A. Davidson break down how bank M&A has become a long game shaped by diligence, culture, regulation, and timing. Travillian’s Brian Love and Andrew Liesch sit down with Dan Flaherty (Janney) and Gene Katz (D.A. Davidson) to discus...

Consumers are shifting from traditional search engines to AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, which is fundamentally changing how financial products appear and get evaluated. Amber Buker , Chief Research Officer at  Travillian , reconnects with  Alana Levine , Chief Revenue Officer at  Fintel Connect , to explore one of the biggest shifts uncovered in Fintel Connect’s annual survey: the rise of cons...

Hosted by  Keith Daly , Principal, Banking & Fintech Search at  Travillian , this strategic conversation features  Nikhil Lakhanpal , Co-founder of  Narmi , and  Chris Tremont , Chief Digital Officer at  Grasshopper Bank . They detail the launch of the first Model Context Protocol (MCP) banking integration, explaining how this technology enables AI platforms to perform CFO-level financial anal...

This episode brings together host  Andrew Liesch , Head of Bank Strategy at  Travillian , and  Stephen Scouten , Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at  Piper Sandler , for one of the most grounded conversations you’ll hear on bank performance heading into 2026. Scouten lays out why management teams feel more optimistic than they have in years, why valuations remain stubbornly low...

In Building Brotherly Love: Ira Robbins, CEO of Valley National Bank, and Brent Beardall, CEO of WaFd Bank, moderators Brian Love (Head of Banking & Fintech, Travillian) and Andrew Liesch (Head of Bank Strategy, Travillian), and keynote speakers, Ira Robbins (Chairman and CEO, Valley National Bank) and Brent Beardall (President, CEO, and Vice Chairman, WaFd Bank) dive into American banking and...