Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Long-time readers of Upsize will recognize Melissa Johnston from the many Upsize/Club Entrepreneur panel discussions she took part in while serving as senior vice president and senior business banker at Highland Bank.
Truth be told, she says, she wasn’t looking to leave that role, even after learning of a new opportunity that would allow her to become a co-founder.
“People say ‘have you always wanted to start a bank?’ No, I haven’t,” she says. “In fact, when I was contacted to meet with Daniel [Boeckermann, the bank’s chair] to talk about being part of the founders’ group, it took me several months and a number of conversations before I even took the meeting. Then I took the meeting and thought it was a crazy idea.”
But after taking the meeting, her interest went from about a 5 percent to about a 50 percent. “And, then, from there, my interest kept going up.”
As the leadership group, which also includes CEO Tim Viere, President Todd Hovland and chief financial officer Erik Knutson, came together, Johnston finally came to believe starting what will become EntreBank was an opportunity she could not pass up.
So, how does a group of founders with a significantly entrepreneurial mindset differentiate itself in an already vibrant market of community banks?
Johnston, who will be the chief credit officer and chief marketing officer, says the employee team intends to be more responsive, sit down face-to-face with clients to learn about their businesses and become a true adviser.
“A lot of other banks just take orders or may think they know what the client needs without really doing a deep dive,” she says. “We want to walk our clients’ path with them and help them implement new strategies, be a sounding board through good times and bad, know where they got started, where they want to go and really create value to help them capitalize on opportunities.”
Viere says EntreBank will accomplish that by hiring people that have a sense of urgency about ensuring what Johnston said comes true.
“So many organizations are really top down,” he says. “I think we really kind of view ourselves from the bottom up, meaning that the individuals who are closest to the customer are closest to the operations. They’re the ones that are going to see on a daily basis how we can do things better.”
Viere was early in his career when the savings and loan he worked at converted into what became Voyager Bank, “so the only thing in my career that I haven’t truly done was go through the application process of getting a brand-new bank started.”
While personal service will be important, EntreBank officials say the ongoing pandemic and other factors have left people less interested in meeting in person than in the past.
Thus technology also will play a key role in EntreBank’s future. The bank will open a Bloomington branch location in March.
But the bank will use an open architecture core system, which means it can offer both proprietary and third-party external products to its clients, which is thought to allow institutions to better meet their needs.
“As fintechs and new technologies come along, I think our core system will allow us to respond more quickly than some of the legacy systems that are out there,” he says.
Both say staff will balance technology and personal relationships. Johnston, Viere says, has tremendous passion for building relationships with clients and will ensure their needs are being met.
“It doesn’t matter where your customer is located,” Viere says. “You take the old community bank mentality that is ‘your customer needs to feel like they belong. They need to feel like they are a part of the organization, that they feel like they belong there.’ I think that matches up with our culture, as well.”
EntreBank will officially open soon and the company has been finishing up filling out its staff. Joining the co-founders will be 10 additional industry veterans. It’s an experienced group with varied talents and deep networks that Johnston and Viere say will allow EntreBank to hit the ground running.
But those cultural seeds were sown early on, as the founders quickly meshed their complementary skill sets. Johnston and Hovland “both have incredible client connections and clients that love doing business with them,” Viere says. Knutson is well versed not just on the financial side, but in technology. Boeckermann, the chair, has been on the board at two successful banks. And, Johnston adds that Viere is a master of reading a room and collaborating.
“He’s been so phenomenal at building this team,” she says. “He allows for healthy conversation and making sure everybody feels heard. He’s very open-minded. Oftentimes he’ll start the conversation with ‘oh, I never thought about it that way’ or ‘huh, that’s never been brought up to me that way.’”
There have been few disagreements, but a couple challenges have arisen through the start-up process. They hit snags when closing in on a name for the company and on lease negotiations for a space they’d looked at for months.
When each of the first choices fell through, they gave themselves a brief period to be frustrated, but then shortly thereafter moved on to solutions they liked better.
“We’ve learned it’s a very positive group,” Viere says. “When you’re positive and proactive, you might not end up with things being perfect, but you’re able to improve things pretty quickly.”
Contact: Melissa Johnston is chief credit officer and co-founder of EntreBank: me*****@*******nk.com; www.entrebank.com;
linkedin.com/in/Melissa-johnston-banker; Tim Viere is CEO and co-founder of EntreBank: ti*@*******nk.com; linkedin.com/in/timothy-viere-13670b
