Interview with Roland Shelton, Chief Strategic Business Partnership Officer & Leo Lopez, SVP Community Lending Executive, Old National Bank
Tell us about the importance of the expanded Community Lending Program.
Roland Shelton:
At Old National we believe in supporting our communities and supporting great businesses and creating great partnerships, the importance of the Small Business Empowerment and Loan Program creates strong economic improvement opportunities, growth opportunities for businesses just to create an atmosphere of being able to hire new people and create a strong synergy amongst communities. This is very important so I think without a doubt it’s an exceptional program in the banking industry.
Leo, you are part of a unique program, how did this program come about and what has the impact been thus far?
Leo Lopez:
Thank you, first for this opportunity to go back and answer part of your question about how the program came about. It is the vision of our CEO Jim Ryan who asked how we lend more to our communities, and having Roland Shelton lead this program.
I’m very blessed to be taking part in this effort on behalf of Old National Bank and how to expand business lending to minority and women-owned small businesses. It is incredibly critical as we look to figure out how we address primarily the wealth gap that exists in our communities and so this is Old National Bank’s attempt at solving part of that on behalf of our communities.
Old National prides itself in its commitment to diversity in all spheres. Why is this the stance Old National has taken?
Roland Shelton:
So we’ve been in business for 190 years and at Old National Bank, our culture is inclusive. We believe in pride and opportunity that everyone has a voice, everyone has a place to take part in this great culture we have. So it’s part of who we are, it’s our fabrication.
Banking is often a barrier to access – how does Old National address the concerns of communities who struggle with trusting banks?
Roland Shelton:
Our community relationships are very, very important to us throughout our entire footprint. In terms of underserved communities, and underrepresented communities, we’ve done a good job internally of positioning the company and making sure we have the right focus on hiring people that look like those communities. We have developed product lines and strategies to support those relationships in communities. So it’s a two-way relationship and we are very intentional in making sure that as we strategize the company’s future, we look at everything across the board to make sure those communities are not, I won’t say left out, but they’re part of what we do every day. That’s a very important strategy for us.
Small businesses often don’t qualify for many banking criteria, how is Old National helping small businesses, specifically?
Leo Lopez:
This is where the Empowerment Small Business Loan Program comes into play. We attempt to solve three things as they show up at our doors regarding the wealth gap, that is: lower money for down payments, lower credit scores, and tighter cash flows. And so within the program, we have expanded some of the parameters to allow us to vet businesses that we think are still good businesses that face additional challenges. For example, we have credit scores down to 620 now. The expanded parameters do not mean automatic approvals, it means that we can look at the business the way we look at all other businesses despite those challenges. So we contend that there are there businesses in our communities that face additional challenges that are still good businesses that are not getting funded and so we’re looking to find those and we’re very fortunate we have been able to find a lot of them in our first year of implementation of the program.
How can businesses be more engaged with banking services and why are these services important for their businesses?
Leo Lopez:
It takes money to grow a business and while some of the money has to be the entrepreneurs’ own money, where we come as a bank is partnering with them and providing a loan, a line of credit. The understanding of how that works is incredibly important for our business owners. So engaging with the bank, whether it’s Old National or any bank, understanding what the bank’s strengths are about that entrepreneur-specific business model is very important and therefore creating that relationship with a banker who then understands the business model can be incredibly powerful as they look to grow. The access to capital is access to people, access to relationships, access to people like myself and Roland Shelton so that we can understand what the business needs are and how then we can partner with them and vice versa so if our client understands where we stand what we offer we get great partners.
There have been various initiatives that you have rolled out. Of those, what is the highlight that you can share with us from the time you’ve been with Old National?
Roland Shelton :
I’ve worked at many other organizations and I can tell you this is the best organization I’ve ever worked at. In all of my career I’ve been involved with different initiatives and implementation of different programs and strategies, but what we are doing in supplier diversity, what we’re doing with the small business empowerment Program, what we’re doing with establishing a minority depository institute, what we’re doing with training and development through our CEO Council and other initiatives to develop people in the organization is just amazing to me. I’ve not been a part of any organization that has focused at the highest level from the CEO down on these types of initiatives that are changing lives and being sustainable in the communities we serve. So I wake up every day, I’m so blessed to be a part of this both in the creation strategy around it and then implementation and see the long-term effects is being able to work with Leo and some other great executives, diverse executives that are just phenomenal and what they do is just a compound of so many different things. I can just go on and on about that, but that alone has just been the most rewarding part of my career.
Can you tell us about the CEO Council?
Roland Shelton:
When I started in this role on the executive leadership team four years ago, Jim Ryan, our CEO, wanted to create a development program for majority-minority executives, but an opportunity for key middle, upper middle executives to be trained, to get exposure to the executive leadership team, to create an opportunity to advise the executive leadership team, to come together and build a great bond and relationship in their development, and then to, hopefully, position for opportunities for growth in the company and we’re on cohort number three and it’s been extremely successful.
Leo is a by-product of the CEO council and he’s of course done extremely well. But it’s just a great mechanism for developing talent in the organization, creating exposure, and understanding what it takes to be a senior leader in the organization. It’s a great idea, which has been amazing. Jim Ryan’s vision of this has just been, again, phenomenal. So I’ve not seen that in too many organizations as well in my 30-plus years of work.
What are 3 things that make a successful leader?
Leo Lopez:
Well, one is a nimbleness to attempt to learn and continue growth. It is, and I try to understand how our leadership at all national functions, and I would say that that’s an attempt to grow to things like that and nimbleness to continue to learn and that is an incredible privilege to attempt to be a leader. It’s not, and more importantly, it’s not about me, it’s about this opportunity to try and help, not only in the communities that we’re trying to deliver our services to, but also to help our colleagues to understand the issues we’re trying to solve, and then to help our colleagues to try to participate in the programs that we’re trying to implement.
Roland, you’ve been in various leadership positions. How has your leadership evolved through the years?
Roland Shelton:
It’s interesting, I had this conversation recently with someone about what real leadership is in organizations and what are organizations looking for. Servant leadership, you know, through the years, you develop relationship networks, you experience individual failures and success. All of this continues to build who you are as a leader and I’ve evolved into wanting to see others grow in the organization, being able to help mentor and strategize around people’s careers, and networking and connecting individuals. Understanding what the needs of the organization are and how individuals fit in the different team members at Old-National. And so I’ve evolved and wanted to always get back and because I’ve had great mentors and sponsors through the years my leadership is built on a lot of shoulders that I’ve stood on But I’ve also had those tough conversations through the years, right? And I’ve had success through the years, but from all of that, it’s about giving back and supporting others.
Old National is creating change in community empowerment, what other initiatives should we know about?
Leo Lopez:
Specifically, we have efforts around the Empowerment Small Business Loan Program program you can find the information on our website. We have an initiative regarding a Minority Depository Institution coming up that is led by one of our great leaders Rafael Sanchez in Market.
Roland Shelton:
Rafael Sanchez who is our Chief Impact Officer and is also part of our executive leadership team, and has been the Market President for Indianapolis. He’s done a phenomenal job taking the work the CEO Council has done in terms of project work and doing the preliminary study on the Minority Depository Institute. He’s taken that and moved us forward for an investment opportunity for Old National. This is another vision of our CEO Jim Ryan on how we infuse and change the economic landscape and communities. It’s just exciting to see another initiative and focus that comes from our leadership. At Old National Bank working with Leo, who’s got 20 plus years of incredible banking experience in nonprofit government and commercial and retail, so I get a chance to work with four other incredible leaders like him.
It makes my job easy to have those types of extremely talented people leading the market and leading our efforts. At Old National, we take pride in our people and we are extremely mindful of our culture and as our slogan says “Better Together.”
