My first interactions with the banking system began before I was a teenager. At the age of 10, I was in a partnership with my brothers to raise hogs as a small business. Hopefully we would generate profits to finance our college educations. This work began as a 4-H project for all of us and was possible in part from the support of our parents and their family farm. However, we needed to find the working capital to support the costs of raising hogs until they could be sold. To meet that need we relied on short term financing from our local banks which also provided us with the current account to make and receive payments. One could look at this experience as microfinance for juvenile entrepreneurs and we were lucky to have a local bank, Security Savings Bank of Eagle Grove, Iowa, to support us.
With the profits from these activities and scholarship funding, I was able to receive my BA from Cornell College in 1976 and an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1977. I was also fortunate to finish this schooling without any debt to be repaid.
I began my career at ShoreBank in Chicago in June 1976. ShoreBank was a pioneer in using finance to address societal issues. I had the opportunity to work with a diverse senior management team in a challenging neighborhood in Chicago as I began my banking career. In the course of my time at ShoreBank, I learned the nuts and bolts of banking including how to manage a bookkeeping department (when computers were very limited in use), a teller line with face to face contact with clients and a finance and control function that helped steer the bank’s own strategy and performance.
Seeking to broaden my banking knowledge I joined the First National Bank of Chicago in 1980 in correspondent banking. My clients were community banks throughout the Upper Midwest of the US. In 1983 I had the opportunity to join Exchange National Bank, a regional middle market lending focused commercial bank. I joined to work for the senior management team on strategy and expansion– and for the first time in my career had my own personal computer to develop spreadsheets for financial analysis.
In 1990 Exchange was acquired by ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank, seeking to expand its presence in the US, especially in the Chicago area. This acquisition gave me the chance to move to investment banking where I worked on both strategic initiatives to expand product capabilities as well as developing and growing a niche leasing activity for municipalities. In 1996 I was asked to move to Amsterdam and support the ABN AMRO network of securities affiliates around the world. Eventually I moved into a finance role and from 2000 to 2006 managed the Group Strategic Decision Support team which provided analysis and advice to the Managing Board as well as supporting the performance planning and management (e.g. budgeting) processes for the bank globally.
In 2007 the ABN AMRO was acquired by three banks in one of the largest takeovers in the banking industry. My role shifted to supporting the integration of the European activities of the ABN AMRO into the Royal Bank of Scotland. This work was completed and my role was no longer required. I therefore left the bank in early 2009.
As a Board member of ShoreBank in Chicago, I was invited to attend an organizational meeting of a group of values-based driven banks from throughout the world. This group decided to form the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (www.gabv.org). In 2010 we met in Dhaka, Bangladesh and developed the strategy and actions for growing the values-based banking movement. I have had the good fortune to be able to work with the Global Alliance for the last 10 year with a focus on metrics and financial performance for values-based banking. With an extensive global network of more than 50 banks on all inhabited continents , the Global Alliance has provided me with insight regarding a variety of business models and activities used by banks to address the environmental, social and economic challenges facing the communities in which they operate.
At the end of March 2019 I retired from my direct work with the Global Alliance. I am now enjoying living in Amsterdam with my Dutch husband, keeping busy with this blog as well as providing advice on values-based banking and recently joined the board of the Fulbright Commission in The Netherlands.
