Creating a feeling of welcome . . . for customers and new bankers

So you have won an Emerging Leader Award.

You're on our Emerging Leaders Council and currently serving as chair.

What have you been exposed to through that Emerging Leader network and experience that has helped you to grow your horizons as a bank professional?

Yeah.

For me, and I would never wanna say this, but I am gonna say it to a national audience, when people come up to me and say, "Hey, Ryan, we'd really love you to work for X and Y bank," sometimes they would go, "Oh, we'll pay you this amount of money." And I think that's good.

Hello, we all need money.

These gas prices are out of hand right now.

But really, it's the impact that I can make.

So you came to me and said, "Hey, this is the tools we are gonna give you to make this large enough impact," that is what perks my ears up.

That is what goes, "Oh, wow, this is gonna be a great opportunity." And so one of the things that being on the Emerging Leaders Council has given me is just a national kinda footprint in order to make this impact.

And when I say impact, that could be impact beyond just between bankers itself.

"Hey, what are you doing in Mississippi? This is what I'm doing in Texas." It could be these national problems that go over anybody's state, but these are something that we're all dealing with.

And so now that is our time to say, "Hey, we're going to Capitol Hill," which I'm very proud of because we went on the first Hill visit this year as a group, the Emerging Leader group.

That was our first time ever.

And then you would be surprised.

I think now that people have my number and everything, I get everything between, "Hey, Ryan, this college is closing in Knoxville.

Is there any way or anybody that you know that can help?" Which I love, [laughs] even though it seems like it's totally out of the realms of banking.

But like I said earlier, in banking and with the financial industry, it has a touchpoint on everything that we do.

Yeah.

And so that's one of the reasons, again, going back to my just early days, is banking really is that pillar in community that you can't get by.

And I want it just to be one of those things that I got into it and I'm leaving the financial system that much better, that much stronger than where I started from.