Travillian Next, launched in early 2020, is dedicated to producing original, behind-the-scenes content for the banking & fintech industries. http://www.travilliannext.com/
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60 recent
June 10, 202626 min
The Bank Failure That Sent a Ripple Through American Banking: Steve Plunk’s Lessons from Penn Square
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 conversation from the collaboration series between Travillian Next and Maxfield on Banks.
June 3, 202647 min
Brent Beardall & Simone Lagomarsino: Two Bank CEOs on Leadership, M&A, and the Deal That Made Them Family
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 profession. A good listen for anyone thinking about leadership, succession, or M&A in community banking.
May 27, 202618 min
Travillian’s Conference Crawl: What Amber & Brian Heard at Finovate, D.A. Davidson, Alloy Labs, and S&P Global
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 tokenized deposits, AI in the boardroom, bank-fintech partnerships, and the Wild West of bank M&A ahead in H2 2026.Take the Travillian Bank-Fintech Fault Line Diagnostic: https://travilliangroup.com/fault-line-diagnostic/Reach Brian at blove@travilliangroup.com or Amber at abuker@travilliangroup.com.
May 20, 202641 min
CEO Matthew Smith on Building Rhinebeck Bank's Next 160 Years
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, and setting the strategic direction for the next 3 to 5 years.Matt brings a tech-forward background from Sterling, Webster, and the world of banking as a service into a traditional community bank, and the conversation is one other CEOs and boards should be paying attention to. It covers the opportunity cost of standing still, open architecture and the fast follower strategy, how Rhinebeck is competing against megabanks, fintechs, and big-box retailers all at once, and the talent profile community banks need to hire for now: experience design, enterprise architecture, payments innovation, data science, and AI fluency.Matt also walks through Rhinebeck's second step conversion, what it unlocks for capital and M&A, and offers direct advice for aspiring community bank CEOs and the boards thinking about hiring them. Whether you lead a bank, sit on a board, or are building your career toward the C-suite, this is a practical conversation about the new wave of community banking leadership.
May 6, 202621 min
“We Don’t Carry Any Dead Weight” — Inside Five Star Bank’s Financial Engine with CFO Heather Luck (Part 2)
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 how Five Star manages its outsized CRE concentrations with granular monitoring, why cost of funds came down while reshaping the deposit base, and how the team sustains an efficiency ratio in the low 40s while investing heavily in people, technology, and new markets.A must-listen for community bank CFOs, controllers, board members, and anyone curious about what it takes to run the financial engine of an opportunistic, high-performing community bank.Filmed in collaboration with John Maxfield of Maxfield on Banks.
April 29, 202619 min
"A Sales Organization Masquerading as a Bank" — Inside Five Star Bank's Culture-First (Part 1)
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 they unpack. He shares the origin story of how a single referral became a national mobile home park lending platform. He walks through Five Star's playbook for spotting opportunistic verticals, like the recent Orange County title-and-escrow build-out. And he opens up about what it takes to protect a flat, "never-quit" culture as the bank scales past 300 employees.A must-listen for community bank executives, board members, and anyone curious about how a high-performing community bank actually operates.Filmed in collaboration with John Maxfield of Maxfield on Banks.
April 15, 202618 min
Banking the Nation: Huntington Bank Executives on the $26B Federal Contracting Opportunity in Indian Country
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 Native American Financial Services at Huntington Bank, for an in-depth conversation on Native American banking, tribal sovereignty, and the growing opportunity in Indian Country that most financial institutions are overlooking.Mike and Jackson cover how Huntington built a fully integrated Native American Financial Services practice, why Indian Country is one of the safest places in the private sector to do business, and how tribal sovereignty works in practice when structuring deals, including a landmark unsecured credit facility completed entirely under Navajo law. Jackson also breaks down the $26 billion federal contracting sector, why tribes and Alaska Native corporations are uniquely positioned to access it, and why every financial institution should be paying attention.Whether you are a banker exploring tribal markets for the first time or a financial professional looking to deepen your understanding of Indigenous economic development, this conversation is a must-listen.
April 8, 202633 min
Fight Like Heck to Stay Independent: How First Mid Bank & Trust Built a $9 Billion Community Banking Powerhouse
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 relationships, and a succession plan built around one of the youngest executive teams in the industry.
March 25, 202632 min
Balance Sheet Truths from Piper Sandler's Scott Hildenbrand, The Hardest Working Man in "Bank Land"
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 strategies in a volatile interest rate environment, the conversation explores how financial institutions are thinking about balance sheet management, leadership decisions, and long-term growth.The discussion also covers talent dynamics in the M&A landscape, the rise of niche banking strategies, and how regulatory expectations are influencing liquidity and capital decisions for banks today.If you’re a bank CEO, board member, executive, or industry professional looking to better understand balance sheet strategy and the challenges facing community banks, this episode offers a candid perspective from one of the most active voices advising financial institutions today.
March 12, 202628 min
How Community Banks Can Build Stronger & More Diverse Bank Boards — Jennifer Docherty, Bank on Women
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-Founder of Bank on Women, to unpack why boardrooms remain so homogenous and what banks can do differently.Jennifer explains the structural dynamics that shape how directors are recruited and why meaningful performance gains begin to appear once boards reach a “critical mass” of women. The conversation also explores how community banks can modernize board succession planning, build stronger leadership pipelines, and expand their candidate pools through sponsorship and organizations like Bank on Women. Together, they outline practical steps banks can take to strengthen governance while positioning themselves for the next generation of leadership.
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