Sep 28, 2026 · 24 min · 9 segments
John Maxfield has spent 16 studying banking leadership and performance, first at *The Motley Fool*, then at *Bank Director* magazine and more…
John MaxfieldGuest
Evan SparksHost
So you went on to, you were at Bank Director Magazine for a number of years, and then you've kind of gone off on your own telling these stories.
For listeners, I know there are a lot of bank CEOs who are really familiar with your work because they ask me, hey, do you know John Maxfield? And now I can say I do, which is great.
But for those who aren't familiar, what stories are you looking for? What are you trying to...
What are you trying to do with the huge wealth and diversity of stories that we have in this industry?
And so I spent really the first, let's call it 14 years studying the industry really, really intensely and studying the history and doing some theoretical work in there.
And one of the things that you realize is that the narrative on banking isn't accurate.
If you go back to this idea that bankers are greedy fat cats, even if you go back 200 years to the earliest big bankers, what you find is that they gave away all their wealth after they died to found a school for poor orphans and stuff like that.
You know what I mean? And so like when I realized that the narrative of American banking was that I didn't believe that it was accurate.
And then when you overlay that with the importance of the industry, what I realized is that like, oh, no, like one of the missing pieces here for our legislative successes and all those things to keep it as a vibrant and thriving industry is that we need to tell the story better.
And so the last three years, what I've really been doing is focusing on developing storytelling techniques that are modern and catch the eye and are interesting and beautiful and fascinating.
And so the way I've done that, like you said, I was editor in chief of bank director.
For the last three years, I've brought these videographers along on this journey with me across the country to small towns, big cities, all these different places.
And what we're trying to do is we're just trying to tell the story of American banking in a modern way.
To your point, a lot of people who consume my content are already people who believe in my message, which is that the community banking industry is important and is worth fighting for to keep it around for as long as we can.
So you went on to, you were at Bank Director Magazine for a number of years, and then you've kind of gone off on your own telling these stories.
For listeners, I know there are a lot of bank CEOs who are really familiar with your work because they ask me, hey, do you know John Maxfield? And now I can say I do, which is great.
But for those who aren't familiar, what stories are you looking for? What are you trying to...
What are you trying to do with the huge wealth and diversity of stories that we have in this industry?
And so I spent really the first, let's call it 14 years studying the industry really, really intensely and studying the history and doing some theoretical work in there.
And one of the things that you realize is that the narrative on banking isn't accurate.
If you go back to this idea that bankers are greedy fat cats, even if you go back 200 years to the earliest big bankers, what you find is that they gave away all their wealth after they died to found a school for poor orphans and stuff like that.
You know what I mean? And so like when I realized that the narrative of American banking was that I didn't believe that it was accurate.
And then when you overlay that with the importance of the industry, what I realized is that like, oh, no, like one of the missing pieces here for our legislative successes and all those things to keep it as a vibrant and thriving industry is that we need to tell the story better.
And so the last three years, what I've really been doing is focusing on developing storytelling techniques that are modern and catch the eye and are interesting and beautiful and fascinating.
And so the way I've done that, like you said, I was editor in chief of bank director.
For the last three years, I've brought these videographers along on this journey with me across the country to small towns, big cities, all these different places.
And what we're trying to do is we're just trying to tell the story of American banking in a modern way.
To your point, a lot of people who consume my content are already people who believe in my message, which is that the community banking industry is important and is worth fighting for to keep it around for as long as we can.
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