May 14, 2026 • 63 mins
On this episode of Money & Wealth, John Hope Bryant sits down with Steve Steinour, Chairman and CEO of Huntington Bank, for a powerful conversation about leadership, capitalism, banking, and creating opportunity for everyone.
Steve shares his journey from a small blue-collar town to leading one of the largest banks in America, while opening up about family struggles, resilience, and the lessons that shaped his leadership style. Together, John and Steve break down the real purpose of banking, how credit and trust create opportunity, and why financial literacy is one of the biggest keys to building wealth.
They also dive into entrepreneurship, small business lending, the importance of relationships, and how programs like Lift Local are helping underserved communities gain access to capital and create generational wealth.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome The Money in Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iheartradioy, Hey, this
is John O'Bryant and this Money in Wealth podcast series
on iHeartRadio and the Black Effect Network. I want to
(00:23):
thank you all for making this book, this podcast, or
the book top one hundred Amazon. By the way, Capitalism
for all you haven't got a copy, get it. I
want to thank you all also for making the podcast
Money and Wealth top two hundred on top two hundred
and fifty on every continent in the world, top forty
to fifty Entrepreneurship in America, and top one percent of
(00:44):
all podcasts. And we are getting into season three with
some powerhouse guests. I don't normally have guests on the podcast.
You know, it's normally me just pouring into you for
forty five minutes. But when I have a guest, you
know it and they are special. My guest today is
Steve Steineu.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
That name in this you're in banking, probably he's got
a household name to use.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
If if you're in banking, you know, he leads one
of the biggest banks in America, Huntingdon Bank. And if
you don't know who he is. Well consider yourself lucky, fortunate, blessed,
and soon enlightened and full disclosure. Steve is a friend
(01:34):
of mine and I even consider him a mentor of mine.
He's done two things to me and for me that
I don't know if I told him personally.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
That showed me who he was. Number One.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
When I was trying to build operation and hope and
take it to us next to the next level, he
agreed to join the whole Global Board of Advisors, our
inaugural group as a founding board member, and he stayed
on for a year. He was busy, didn't have time
to do it. He was on for a year, then
he left. But him coming on the board set the standard.
(02:08):
And now we have the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas
City President, We've got all these luminaries, fort the CEO
of Delta Airlines, all these they call him big ballers
and shot collars from all sorts, all walks of life.
But they wouldn't have done that had they not found
credibility with their peers being on the board. So by
him saying yes early on and showing up the board meetings,
(02:31):
I remember he discouraged me from doing virtual meetings. He said,
you know, he's used to showing up in person and
being present. And I learned a lot from him backing me.
The second time he did something that was extraordinary was
he was a governor of Ohio who was a Republican.
And I'm not I'm not a partisan player. But you know,
(02:54):
folks would assume, maybe for the work I do, that
I'm not a Republican. I don't know why. They just
that I'm going to be fair. I'm an independent, but
I'm not. I'm not political in any way. And that
didn't matter to Steve. Steve thought the work that we
were doing is important and Republicans and Democrats need to
know about it. And I've served three presidents from both parties,
(03:16):
Republicans and Democrats, Bush Clinton pre and post president or
during presidency and post and President Obama. President Bush is
where I got actually the most work done. Oddly enough,
and Steve Steinauer said, come with me, and we left
(03:36):
his office and we went through what I call an
underground tunnel. It was a connected walkway to this capital.
And he took me to the Governor's office and put
his arm around me and said, this is my guy.
To the governor and we had a great relationship as
a result of that, he and his governor, his then governor,
and I just thought that was very special. Again, these
(03:57):
were two things that were done with no wh he
was looking just quiet leadership. And Steve, I want to
just thank you publicly for backing me and backing the
work because you thought it was important to do.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Ladies and gentlemen, and I still do, John, I still
think the work is very important in some ways, even
more important today. But it was kind of you to
lower the bar and let me join your board for
a year and get into that founder circle. It was
it was I think very helpful for the team, both
(04:35):
board and your team at the time because I remember
our first meeting. I offered you a couple of thoughts
about how to engage the directors get the benefit of
the mind share there, and you did that expertly. And
that's when I knew I've made a contribution. I can
now retire and let you give that seat to someone
(04:55):
more worthy. So happy to have had that time with you,
and of course over the many years subsequently in different
forums and in different undertakings, but you were kind to
let me sort of give you that personal escort over
to you're a rock star. So we walk over to
the Leverage J six office and the governor was, I think,
(05:18):
a great governor and also he's a good friend. I
was just talking to him. Man and a good man,
great heart, very religious, very very ethical, and it's done
wonderful things for the country throughout his service over time.
And I knew the two of you would connect, you
just like that, because you cut out of the same cloth.
(05:38):
You care about people, you care about outcomes, and you
want to help. And it was one of these rare
moments for me to be able to see an introduction
come together with such a dynamic impact.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So and we need more of that, like my pleasure, Steve,
thank you. We need more leaders like Steve Steinauer in
the world today.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Know what mean by that?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
He takes me to a Republican governor's office when he
didn't have to do it, and then he sponsors the
Urban League in Ohio for a speech where when I
showed up, he didn't just sponsor the speech. He's at
the dinner with the Urban League leadership. He's he's home.
This is these people know him, he's their friend. So
he can go from black to white, or rich to poor,
(06:24):
or conservatives liberal or the other way around, and get
respect in both rooms. Now you may say, Okay, there's
a lot of people I know who can do that.
Really do they do? They run a bank with two
hundred and eighty billion dollars plus in assets, and my
guess is the assets have grown beyond that number. But
the last number I had of their asset site for
(06:47):
hunting And Bank's two hundred and billion dollars. And Steve
Steinhauer and his group have partnered with Operation Hope on
a program that we call Lift Local Business Huntingdon's Left
Local Business program that's directed two hundred and forty six
(07:08):
million dollars in book loans to folks from underserved communities
for small business sixty million of which that we have
tagged we have identified to black owned businesses alone as
three and eighty six small businesses serve twenty four hundred
(07:29):
and twenty active operational business entrepreneurial training courses used. So
we are active partners with Hunting the Bank. Let me
give you a bit of background from Steve and then
let him cut loose here with wisdom, because you're going
to get a chance to hear from a chairman CEO
of a top bank in the biggest economy in the
(07:49):
world and learn something about how this system actually works.
So he's chairman, president and chief executive officer of Huntingdon
Bank or Bank Shares and president CEO of hunting A
National Bank.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Now he will hopefully unpack what this means.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But essentially one is a holding company and one as
an operator is where the operating bank. You would know
Huntington National Bank. That's where you if you're a client,
that's where you do business and where you interact. He's
led the bank to two thousand and nine. The bank
was born the year after the Freedman's Bank, by the way,
in eighteen sixty six. Before hunting And he was managing
(08:28):
partner at Cross Harbor Capital Partners. Early in his career,
he was president CEO of Citizens Financial Group. I actually
might have met him, I think at Citizens Financial Group.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I think in Boston. I I'm mistaken. It was a
division anyway, and he was.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
An executive vice president vice president at Bank of New England.
He started out as in public service as an analyst
of the US Treasury Department. They later worked for the
FDI C Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation also serves on the
board of directors. A bit of bath in body works.
I want to get my product from my wife, by
(09:05):
the way, from from there, and he has a reputation
that is rooted in compassionate, ethical, results oriented leadership, and
I can personally certify that that's absolutely the case.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I can.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I'm gonna talk more and more about the credentials as
we go in the conversation. But let's get into this
Steve Steinauer. First of all, let's get a bit of
the backstory.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
The Huntington family goes back many many decades. In fact,
a couple of centuries. The governor of Connecticut who signed
the Declaration of Independence was a Huntington, Samuel Huntington, and
the family was quite large and very extensive in terms
of their activities throughout the US. And so Huntington Ingersoll
(10:02):
in Mississippi, the largest shipyard in Mississippi, employees about twenty
thousand people. That was a Huntington family member. Huntington, West Virginia,
Huntington Beach, California.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
The Huntington were very very large into the trans Continental
Railway in California. Huntington California, California, and so they're the
art museum out there, and the one of the family
members ended up hunting the beach. One of the family
members ended up in eighteen sixty six, a very physically
(10:34):
large gentleman who wanted to the.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
National Road went from Washington, d C. To Columbus, Ohio,
and it stopped in Columbus at that time, and so
this is where goods and merchants and services flowed through.
It was either the Erie Canal or the National Road.
And he felt there was an opportunity to do good
business and help people. And Honey at that time was
(11:03):
was born, and Columbus was a you know, it was
the end of the road. It was. It just wasn't
that much. It was probably a small town when he started,
but it quickly became a city in a city of
some importance to the country. The National Highway ultimately extended
to Indianapolis. But the the the the the effort here
(11:27):
by P. W. Huntington and then his sons extended the
impact of the family for many decades. And the family
always was very good to the community. So the library
was started with some funding by the Huntington Bank and
(11:51):
family and others. Of course, one of the larger nonprofits here,
it's been in existence well over a century does Meals
on Wheels, does a variety of public service providers. Was
founded in the living room of the hunting one of
the Huntington family members, and we've had a board member
on that board for over a century. So there's this
(12:14):
deep legacy of trying to be good to the community,
give back and those Uh. That DNA that's been formed
is frankly part of what attracted me to the company.
It's important to the community that we serve the community
or I mean the community, I mean the full community,
the entire community, black, white, et cetera. And uh, you know,
(12:38):
people of high income and people of very low income
or even no income. Think about those that are homeless
or uh, you know suffering other other other debilitating issues. So, uh,
this legacy, I think is imbued in many of our colleagues.
We have very long service colleagues there fifty we've had
(13:01):
sixty year colleagues who've worked here.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And so this.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Set of values transcended me. I inherited it. I've tried
to enable it, tried to further build upon it. But
it's not something I created these Midwest values, you know, religion, family, respect,
service to country. These are values that I didn't create.
(13:30):
They're present throughout this region. And yet our company, as
a consequence of how we've operated over now one hundred
and sixty years, has built a bit of a brand,
a reputation, a halo if you will, about trying to
be good to people, trying to help businesses, and certainly
trying to help the communities we serve.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
And when I think about folks under who you lead
about brand Standardchho's a good man An and others, they
have that same spirit and that, with all due respect,
comes from the top. It comes from you, Steve, and
I'm not gonna let you get away from the fact
that you are leaders.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I want other people to model your leadership. And also.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Their sense of showing up being PhD dudes as well
as PhDs in their mindset is reflected in how you
show up in community. When I showed up here in
Atlanta to give a speech for the Columbus Partnership, you
were there in the room. I mean, here's a chairman
CEO one of the biggest banks in the world who
took time to come to Atlanta just look at Atlanta
(14:39):
as a model. And then I went to Columbus again
to speak for the Columbus Partnership, which is in and
of itself a great partnership for how city build itself
with private public partnerships. I walk in the room there
once again there's Steve statt Steinauer. It's not like you're
not busy. Why do you put a premium on showing up?
(15:04):
How does that relate to the image that you have
of this being the people's bank? How does this cross
pollinate with how you run the bank. And finally, in
this set of questions, what's the purpose of bank? And
how do people what's a cheat sheet? People can cheat sheets?
Probably wrong way to say a banker? What is a
what is a easy lesson that people can grasp of?
(15:30):
How to get the attention of their banker?
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Five questions? Let me start with the fourth one. UH,
if I may right, I believe that the company, the
bank has a purpose. I fundamentally believe that, and we
express that uh in our purpose statement. But we talk
about it all the time. I'll talk about two groups
senior leaders in two days.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
We're here to.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Help people lead better life, help businesses thrive, and to
make the communities better, better, stronger. And we have our
business model is that the intersection of commerce flows of money,
and so that puts us in a position where we
can extend ourselves, try to do the right thing and
(16:21):
help people and businesses. You reference Lift Local Early program
we've done in partnership with you and your team, which
has been over by the way, and you know, these
are efforts to get into the neighborhoods and make micro loans.
And so when you make in two hundred and fifty
plus thousand and fifty plus million dollars a micro loan,
(16:42):
that's a lot of micro loans. But we've done some
partnership with you because it would be like giving away
money if people didn't understand. And this is what they
get through the training program that you offer that creating
a business needs to have certain elements. You show them
the essential elements. We give them loans. Now these are
(17:07):
SBA loans. These are loans to businesses that are in
most cases just starting, so the credit access generally wouldn't
otherwise be there. And and and yet the performance over
time because these people have been trained, they've been educated,
and that's a big word. Education's literacy right, that that
(17:29):
has spawned jobs in neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn't be there.
It's created business owners who wouldn't otherwise be business owners.
It's it's it's it's capitalism, as you describe it in
your your various books, but particularly I think in your
new book, which I had the privilege of reading an
advanced copy of John So I think, well, I'm trying
(17:54):
to but you know, I'm a banker, so it's I'm
slow and everything, but but I think those elements are essential.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Then.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Now that's two of your five questions. But for people,
you know, the fifth one was it's really important to
get educated. It's really important, whether it's financial education or
anything else, to keep learning, to challenge yourself. And there's
more and more capacity to do that now with these
AI tools and and and and and other digital means
(18:25):
which didn't exist when you and I were growing up.
We had to do it the hard way, right. I
remember the first time somebody said to me you should
make a budget. I had no idea what a budget was.
My family were blue Clollars. They didn't have a budget.
My father was an alcoholic, you know, he didn't have
a he wasn't functional to be able to put a
(18:48):
budget together. So you learn these things over time, but
you you have a persistency about it. And you've used
this word before in various forums where you don't fail
if you don't quit, and so that persistency is really important.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And by the way, that's a Tony Wrestler quote. I'll
give good, We'll give credits due one of our dear friends,
Tony Wrestler is that if you don't quit, you can't fail.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
One of my partners and friends continue on Steve.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
But that's that attitude of willingness to learn, take some risk,
do the right thing, work hard. As you we were
talking before you started taping. You know you're working eighteen
hours a day, and you've been doing it for so
long it's like part of your life rhythm, right to
a certain extent, not quite the same hours, but to
(19:43):
a certain extent. That's the way I've embraced the opportunity
of being a banker, and I know others do and
their different different career pursuits. It's a privilege to be
able to do the things we do. Think of the
millions of people you're helping. In our case, hundreds of
thousands of businesses and maybe a couple million people. But
(20:05):
you know, we make a mortgage loan, that's helping somebody do.
I'll make a home improvement loan, give them all a loan,
start a small business. We're the largest SPA lender in
the country by volume. These things matter.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Slow that down. Say that again, you're the largest what.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
We're the largest SBA lender in the country by the
number of loans we make, and.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So these things that's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So we help. We're in the position where we can
help a lot of people and a lot of businesses.
And so there's a great sense of self satisfaction, a
great sense of pride in my colleagues who do all
the work. Anyway, I'm just a show horse and letting
letting these results flow through. So there's a shareholder return
(20:51):
as well in the equation. But you know, do you
and you've said this before, doing well by doing good,
it's this balance. It doesn't be one of the and
I believe that. I've always believed that.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So Steve, I got to correct him a couple of
times Steve. Steve said, oh, I'm a slow and I'm
trying to get around. Look, here's the endorsement in my
book from Steve stein This is my newest book, Come
About Big, Fastened the Draw.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
It's my newest book.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Steve's already he made sure that his support for what
we do was front and center. So when you get
the book, turn to right to the front and you'll
see Steve Steinauer's endorsement of the book. Johna's focused on
exactly the issues we face today as a society and
a challenge and the challenges of aligning our goals and
(21:43):
institutions and partnership to build the next stage of growth
and opportunity for all Americans. Inclusive economics can be our
future roadmap for the dreams of prosperity, must be attainable
and aspirational for hard work, education, and shared values. He
shows a compelling path forward at a time when we
need to come together. What did I describe him as
(22:05):
the guy who was at the Urban League meeting, and
he was at the Republican governors meeting. And I see
him at the White House. I see him at your
house trying to financi your ouse. I see him in community,
I see him at the Columbus Partnership. I see him
showing up in his own family. And so why is
the People's bank, because you know he's a top twenty
bank in America, the artist SBA lender by volume. I
(22:28):
didn't know that he's They've they've done two hundred and
fifty give or take two hundred and fifty million dollars
with operation and hope in this Huntington's Left local business
program that we're partnering on to do micro lending for
the least of these God's children, because every big business
was once a small one.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
So but at the core of.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
This, as you've heard, he acknowledged without any prompting, his
own person, part of his own personal background, his decency,
his accessibility. He can't lend money, can't be a good
lender unless he has his hand on the post of
the community. Let me give you say something that Steve won't.
And then I want to go to your background, Steve. Uh,
(23:09):
background and banking background in banking, personal background and professional
banking or banking has it works just to.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Tea that up.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
An entrepreneur needs a banker, and the banker needs the entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
The Banker's gonna say and the attorney's gonna say ah,
slow down, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
That's their nature. The conservative, by nature they're supposed to be.
The banker keeps the entrepreneur from running off the road
and into a ditch or into a wall. Uh. The
entrepreneur and attorney only prosper if the banker. Sorry, the
banker and the attorney only prosper the entrepreneur uh is successful. Conversely,
(23:50):
the entrepreneur needs the fuel and the protection from what
will be the banker. The entrepreneur and the accountant without
capital with out banking, and banking is to Wall Street
what Wall Street is to the biggest businesses in the world,
which is a source of capital. And so this is
(24:13):
a mutually beneficial relationship. But the entrepreneur's gonna be frustrated
a little bit by the banker tapping on the brakes, and.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
The banker's gonna be frustrated and bemused.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
A little bit by the entrepreneur who's got his foot
on his or her foot on the gas. But this
constructive friction, this dynamic tension, is precisely what makes the
engine go. Everybody sort of respects each other's role. My
job is to make that banker. Steve's bankers and his
example comfortable with me that I'm a good credit risk,
(24:44):
that I'm not going to embarrass them, that if there's
a problem, I'm gonna tell them first and not let
and then I'm gonna find out by themselves that if
they're challenge they wanted to chase me, I'm gonna call
them and work out a restructuring or payment relation. I
have to have credibility. Credit till comes on the Latin
would work. Credit comes a lot to work. Credit till
which is credibility, and capital comes a lot to work.
(25:05):
Copy toask knowledge in the head. I've got to have
enough knowledge and enough credibility. So the banker says, this
is a good credit risk. Now did I have that right?
Or do you need to correct me with any of that?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Steve?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Number two, how does what I say expand into the
broader context of banking? And number three, you can do
this anyway you want your personal story, how does it
inform everything else that you do?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Well?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
You got number one right. That is the nature of
the business model. We're looking to lend. If you will
rent money, right, extend alone a lot of capital. It's
used to create income hopefully wealth over time for individuals
(25:59):
and businesses, but that base level of the loan plus
some interest gets repaid. So capitalism at its essence, and
I think this is really important for us as a
society to make sure that capitalism becomes accessible to all
and it flows, It just flows. So that's number one. Now,
(26:23):
I think John, the nature of our our work and
sort of the way I was brought up have parallels.
My grandparents had a lot of influence on me growing up.
They My grandfather worked until he was in his late seventies.
He was a blue collar worker and never made much money,
(26:45):
but he found pride in doing work, and his compliment
to you would be if you're a worker, not not
if you're out having fun or do you know, it's
did you did you do a good job? That always
resonated with me, and that became part of what motivated
me early in my career. And because I didn't know better,
(27:09):
I didn't know that, you know, the probabilities of me
being a CEO of the tenth largest commercial bank in
the country were almost infinite, you know, one and ah,
you know, a couple hundred plus million, So I didn't
didn't think about it. In the terms of playing the
odds here. I just wanted to do the right thing.
(27:31):
I wanted to learn, I wanted to get better, and
I still have those you know, that yearning and just
like you do, which is why you do what you do.
You're going to help people. I think throughout your life,
right when your life's over, if you are in that
last moment, I suspect you will be helping someone. You know,
(27:53):
your family, of course, but beyond your family, you'll be
helping people because that you have that in your body,
in your spirit. You have that insatiable desire to make
an impact. And you've done it throughout all your life.
You've done it since you were nineteen. And for me,
(28:13):
it took a little bit longer to start because I
was unclear what I wanted, although I knew I wanted
some of these elements, and I wanted to move out
of a small town. I didn't grow up in la
like you did, and so I didn't know what a
big city. A big city to me is, you know,
five thousand people it was at the time, but you know,
(28:37):
so things progress and you learn and you you you
you know, you create relationships, you hopefully can find people
like you, and hundreds of thousands of people who watch
your videos, who watch you on YouTube, who listen to you.
Now you know you're impacting and some of what you
(29:00):
say and do they'll follow. And so you know you
have this incredible opportunity now with your podcast to impact
lives around the world. And I know that for you,
it's very motivational.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, and I want it is very motivational.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And every time I talk to you privately or publicly,
I'm inspired by you. I want people to understand two
things before they get off this podcast with us today.
One your backstory, which we're gonna get to no matter
how many times I have to ask you, but we
can get to that in a moment. I really want
to drill down to how do you get become such
a nice, decent human being that I actually like and respect.
(29:41):
But before we get to that, please unpack as best
you can the mystery of banking for the general audience.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
What are some.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Just misnombers or presumptions or mistakes of understanding misperceptions about
banking that we can clear up right here, right now
to hopefully help to set people free.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Sure, well, John, you touched on this a little bit
earlier in terms of how you you you act right,
if you're We view it as a relationship and a
factor of trust, and if there's an issue, you'll communicate it.
If there's a problem, you'll work to solve it. Those
elements of a relationship are so very important. And it's
(30:31):
harder as these banks get bigger and and you know,
are the pace of life accelerates around us. But I
think that's still the essence of good banking and good
business people and relationships. Technology enables, but it's people in
(30:51):
relationships and so connecting and you know, your word is
your bond, and and it is for me. I can't
legally do business on a handshake, but if I could,
there would be people like you I would do it with.
Can't do that anymore, but we can connect with each
(31:14):
other and look at each other, get a general understanding
of what you're hoping to achieve, look at it, maybe
a little more in depth, depending on what the aspiration
and need is. And then you know, we've got to
document it with a legal document. But when we say
we're going to do something looking at each other, making
(31:34):
a handshake, whatever it is, and we do it, we
do it. The rest of it's a formality. So I
think that approach of building credibility and trust is really important.
I was sitting do one story. I was sitting at
an event we had a couple of years ago, and
one of the retired Supreme Court state justices here said
(31:56):
she loved banking with us, and I said, thank you.
I thought it was one of these like obligatory things.
She's at our events, she's saying it, and I said, no,
I really do. And I said, well, tell me why
you do. Because I couldn't go to college unless I
borrowed money, and my mother went to every bank, and
you were the last stop. You were the last stop.
(32:17):
If you didn't make that loan, I wasn't going to college, right.
And I don't hear that a lot, but I hear
it with some regularity where what we've done has made
a difference. We have a program that we talk about
in our mortgage lending where we try to make it
(32:39):
real for our colleagues. It's called a home not a file,
because you process hundreds of thousands of mortgage loans, but
when you connect it with the video of why that
home was important to that individual, oftentimes it's a first home.
(32:59):
It it you can't help but be drawn in. You're
you're you're obviously making a loan and you're doing doing
your work, but you're impacting lives and it could be
a family, could be somebody el rely, could be a vetteran,
it could be somebody disabled. You're impacting lives. So we
are blessed with the nature of the business we do.
And that's what I find so inspirational. And for me
(33:23):
coming from a like a very rural background, blue collar.
You know, if you said CEO, I, you know, it
could have been a donut for all I knew. I
had no idea what that was growing up. And so
it's this steady learning and willingness to engage with others
and against the value set of trying to help people.
(33:46):
And I think our industries replete with I know here
at Huntington, our colleagues feel that way. They want to help,
they want to do the right thing, they want to
help people. And uh, that's why we talk about a
purpose statement so often.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
So something's odd about the way to the audience, they
will hear it, not odd for me. They will hear
what you're saying, and they just they're going to a
lot of the audience members going to scratch their heads
because they're like, no, wait a minute. This guy's basically
saying he wants to make loans, he wants to provide
access to capital, that if somebody's reasonable and trustworthy and
(34:22):
all that stuff, he's going to make them alone. But
aren't banks, you know, discriminatory? That's what they've heard. Aren't
banks racist? Is what they've heard. And what I would
say is, if you're dealing with a bank one hundred
and fifty years ago or two hundred years ago in
America and that bank was family owned in a small
town in the South or wherever, or maybe even the Midwest,
(34:45):
if that was a small, family owned bank, they might
have been had some interesting views in the world, and
they were basically only lending to their friends and family
members and business owners that they knew, and they were
of the size they could do that, and they could
make money just on recycling that capital amongst their crew
of boutique businesses and whatever. But banking, I'm saying this,
(35:06):
but making a statement. This is the statements leading to
a question, Steve. But banking has changed.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
In my view.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Banks now are now mostly publicly traded Uh, they're highly
regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, by the Federal
Reserve in some cases. Going to meet the FED chairman
actually later this week. I think it's a good man
by maybe in some cases by the o SEC the
Office the Contra of the currency, in some cases by
a state regulator, and the consumer protection Consumer Protection Agency
(35:36):
also in some cases and in the SEC also possibly
securities exchange because they're publicly traded. And I've got the banks,
I mean everybody essentially, if you have a diversified portfolio,
you've got banks shares in your four oh one K plan.
The bank has to make loans if they're going to
be profitable and successful. They can't afford to do it
(35:58):
was they were. If they were backwards at the leader
ship level, they can't. If they were not a stage
state Steve Steinauer, they were the opposite of Steve.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
They couldn't afford to do.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Racist policies, to be blunt with it in twenty twenty six,
because there's too much competition and you'll go out of
business because racism is a bad business model. And before
you answer that, I'm gonna answer a question that you
didn't that just below your pay grade. Let me just
say this banking is basically administrative costs, well, cost of savings,
(36:27):
costs of the money to say it's a savings account.
Administrative costs, let's say two percent on top of that, uh,
and then profit let's say that's three percent whatever, pick
a number, and that combined is the cost of capital.
And they want to make that rent that out. As
Steve said, he want to rent it out, rent it out,
and he wants to make some assurances. Bankers want to
(36:48):
have some insurance. They've gotta get it back because they're
just renting the money and they have to get it back,
so they could rent it out to somebody else, and
they need that profit that's inmbedded there? Did I do
a decent job and going over two hundred years of
banking and why banking has changed such that they should
listen to what you're saying now about being the people's banker.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Well, I think there are a lot of people like
me in the industry, so I'm not special by any stretch.
So begin with that. But the nature of what we
do you describe very accurately. You know, these bank branches,
there's a certain amount of cost in running the operation.
(37:36):
So when we're renting money, it's the cost of the deposit,
what's the interest paid on it, it's the overhead, and
then there's a profit margin. But the nature of what
we're doing is very competitive at thousands and thousands of
banks and even more credit unions, and so the the
the impetus to make more loans is in the business model.
(38:03):
It's in the business. It's inherent in the business model.
Good loans, so loans that will ultimately get repaid. And
so whether it's a bank or credit unior, some other
financial institution that does this type of business, I think
there's a capacity inherent to extend credit and we certainly
(38:25):
view that as an opportunity. Now we build relationships. We
don't just make loans. We have checking accounts, we have
credit cards or debit cards. Maybe have a mortgage or
a home improvement loan. Maybe it's a small business loan
or an SBA loan. Maybe we take care of some
(38:46):
of the financial planning and investments that the family or
the business wants to. Those sorts of things all add
up to a relationship. And that's the nature of our
business as opposed to well, we only make loans or
we only take deposits. And so that comes back to
people and relationships, and if you're trying to help people,
(39:08):
if you're trying to look out for what's in their
interests as well, because the better they do, the better
we do. The better the communities we serve do, and
the people in those communities, the better we do. We
have some amount of market share every place we're doing business.
The better that market does, that geography, that town, that city,
(39:28):
that region, the better we do. So there's a lot
of parallel interest in this equation. And I'm a big
believer that in capitalism and that capitalism will continue to evolve.
It will continue to I hope, have a conscious it'll
continue to make opportunities available for people of all races,
(39:52):
of all income walks of immigrants, and people that have
been here multi generations.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
The Lift Local program in the context of what you
just said, could be viewed, and this is I'm thinking
about my new book Capitalism for All and its theory,
it's philosophy of inclusive economics.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Growth of market share could be views.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Not only is it moral and the right thing to do,
not only to help you comply with community investment actor
or what other acts might be appropriate, but primarily, sorry,
I'm thinking this, this is a business development activity. You're
growing you like you're doing a research and development and
(40:42):
business development for an emerging market. You're hoping. I hadn't
put this together into this interview. Actually, Steve, as you
were talking, you're hoping. My guess is you're hoping.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
That these these micro loans build a relationship with you
and grow their business and join your portfolio as a
mainstream slaw business loan, and then.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Then go parallel park on individual family checking accounts and
savings accounts, and parallel park and a home mortgage as
they become a homeowner and multiple homeowners in that family,
as they build wealth in parallel park in the investment
banking group at Huntington, in parallel park in the private
(41:27):
banking group, as you built well in parallel park with
the investment management section of the I mean, am I
getting this right? I mean, it's it's it's it's enlightened
self interest.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
It is, it is, and it's it's in this umbrella though,
of doing good, helping people, helping businesses. And so that's
what your book on capitalism and what you've shared about
enlightened capitalism over the years, all about this isn't a handout,
This isn't a give away, right. This is intended to
(42:02):
make good decisions that benefit people in businesses, but also
benefit banks or other firms as they go forward. We
don't have to be limited by historic thinking you used,
(42:22):
you know, century and a half, two centuries ago, you know,
lending just to people you really knew. There's a lot
more information available now. The benefit of Lift Local and
the training program you provide your team does is that
there is a credible, third party national business resource available
(42:44):
to help people understand what they need to do, what
the expectations are if they're going to create a business.
And it's not for everyone. I mean it's really hard,
really hard. You were talking again about eighteen hours a day. Instance,
you're nineteen. A lot of people, our children look at
(43:04):
me and say, I don't want to work that hard,
which is their decision. You may have something similar cousins
or family members.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Oh yes, oh yes, right, But.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
For me it's a privilege. I don't see it as work.
I see it as something I'm fortunate to be able
to do. And I think you feel the sandwich one and.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I'm the most successful financially successful people in my person
in my lineage, my direct lineage, going back to slavery
to present. My second grade grandfather was a slave, as example.
And my wife's the most successful person in her lineage,
and her father is the most successful person in his
lineage and mom, and we have a responsibility being in
(43:50):
those positions to be compassion to be empathetic, but not
to give handouts, because that doesn't help anybody.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
You want to get a hand up and you and and.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
To teach people how to to do for themselves and
become independent. And yes, give them a little seedcorn, give
them a little encouragement, a little support, but at some
point you got to do for self. And one of
the things I want the audience to understand is the
one of the reasons that Operations Hope chose to not
be bank itself. Well, first of all, I didn't want
to compete with I didn't want to become the new
(44:22):
Freedoman's Bank and compete with my friend and partner Steve Steinower,
a hunting bank or whoever else, right, Uh, But I
could be a unique catalyst as an educator, as a counselor,
as a coach to get the people who are qualified
morally but not mathematically. Their credit score stinks to me,
(44:43):
he can't. Steve can't say it. He'll be sued. Somebody
will find some way, some way to sue him. Is
he's blunt, But I can be blunt. I'm not regulated
like that. If your credit score is told from the
flow up, Steve can't give you a loan, no matter
how much he likes you. And if your in the
average credit score for underserved population six hundred six point
(45:03):
twenty six point forty for big swashes of this country,
of all races, does not allow Steve to give you
a decent home loan at fixed rates, at prime rates.
He can't do it. He needs you at sixt eighty
to seven hundred. He can't give you a small business
loan because that's riskiest credit he's got, is a small
(45:25):
business loan, even with an SBA guarantee. He needs you
up in that seven hundred range if possible. Maybe he
can make some exceptions, but you shouldn't be looking for
the exception.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
You should be looking.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Is better to underestimate and overperform than underestimating or to overestimated,
underperform and Steve's and his people are looking for character
and not just credit. And if they see you aspiring,
seeing you working hard, seeing you trying, they may give
you that secure credit card or that account that you
actually don't really qualify but you're run on the edge,
(45:59):
but they want to see you then perform and prove
that they're right that go to the next level, then
the next span your credit line. And I mean that's
how it was for me coming up when I you know,
and and we have an unsecure credit line, seven figure
credit lines now, but I started out with a twenty
five thousand dollars credit line and operation to hope and
(46:19):
a three hundred dollars credit card for me. So I'm
telling you as a bridge to Steve and the one
of the twenty largest bank in America and ten fardest
commercial banks, I want you to be his client. I
want him to know your name. I want brand Standards
to call you and say, I'm just checking on you.
That's one of his top people at the bank. I
want Stacy to know who you are in the community.
(46:40):
But you've got to do your part to meet him
half way. Get the credit score up, the debt down,
savings up, so you meet his criteria so he doesn't
criticized by his regulator, the bank regulator. Did I explain
your conumdrum and your opportunity reasonably?
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Will? You did, John very well? As usual, you know
this so well. But you also offer a service to
try and help people improve their credit score. And so
let me turn the table here. So would with a
question for you, would you share with your listeners some
of the key ways they could do that, including working
(47:18):
with your team. But there are there are a couple
of steps in particularly, I think that they'd be common denominators.
Why don't you share those if you want? Please?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
U sure?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
So when you walk into a hunting in bank branch,
and by the way, what how many states are you?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
And Steve?
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Twenty one?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Okay? And how many branches do you have?
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Just about fifteen hundred? And how many employees do you have?
Twenty seven?
Speaker 2 (47:46):
So? And did I get the asset size right? Tw
it and eighty.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Billion two in an eighty plus. Yes, that's what I love.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
When you get the power you don't need to use,
it's like yeah, yes, give or take. It's much more
than By the way, if you want their attention, uh,
you've got to show intention. You've got to show that
you are credible. And they have limits regulatorily and statutorially
(48:16):
and with their shareholders about how far they can lean
into your life without putting themselves at risk. We bridge you,
We bridge them, so you ever look for hope inside
inside of hunting in the bank if you can find it,
or another institution, because you know they will take a
referral from another institution. By the way, and we can
get your credit score up initially by removing an error
(48:39):
if you have if you haven't checked your credit in
a couple of years, and that's a good portion of Americans,
there's a large possibility, significant possibility you have an.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Error on your credit report.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
If we challenge the three credit bureaus by sending a
letter I opperation to hope with your cooperation, the credit
bureaus have thirty days to respond to either confirm at
you or remove it. If they remove it, which happens
ninety percent of the time, that popped a credit thirty
points on average. So if you were at five eighty year,
(49:13):
now at sixteen, if you were at six hundred year,
now at six thirty. So the banker now sees oh
my god, you're making improvements. They note your file, and
so then we start working on a budget. He talked
about his dad didn't have a budget, he had a
he had all kind of other challenges deal with. I'm
gonna get to that his personal story in the minute.
I didn't know his backstory. But we're going to help
you create see a budget.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
And when we.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Do that, you're gonna find if you're spending a lot
of money on Starbucks or whatever it is you're spending
on that, you can go get a curate machine at home,
make your own coffee. Stop smoking it's gonna kill you anyway,
and save six thousand dollars a year. And if you're
making forty thousand dollars a year, well, heck that's you know,
more than ten percent of your annual income, and you
(50:00):
can recycle that at the savings. You can lower your
debt to income ratio, which is what they're looking for,
and get and get a saving out going. And then
we give you the earned income tax credit. Was you
making let's sixty thousand dollars a year? By the way, black, white, red, brown, yellow,
urban world doesn't matter. Uh. One o four Americans who
qualify for that never asked for it. That's if you
(50:22):
make it thirty eight thousand dollars a year, and in
Central Ohio as a teacher and you have three children,
the government owes you a check for about seven thousand
dollars if you never filed its retroactive for three years.
That's almost twenty thousand dollars you can use as the
down payment on the house from workers you're asking Steve
Steinauer for from Huntingdon Bank.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
And and then this goes on and goes on and
goes on.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
We can find credit, we can find you know, you
got a divorce ten years ago. That charge off of
one thousand dollars has probably been discounted significantly because they've
been chasing the debt and they sold it to Joe's
Finance company or something for five cents on the dollar. Well,
Steve's only concerned about where you where you resolved that.
So work with the operation to hope we'll contact Joe's
(51:04):
finance company who over owns it, will buy it, We'll
pay it off. You're gonna pay it off if we
negotiate it, and you're gonna get a discount, and they're
gonna get a profit, and Steve's gonna get this removed
from your credit report in a way that he can
say yes to you. In other words, now your credit
score goes up again. So we're gonna be the bridge
and the translator for you to do what you don't
(51:27):
know you can do, and to help you do and
help the bank do what they can't do, so the
bank can tell you yes. The bank does not benefit
if they can't say yes every day to providing capital
and credit cannot grow. So oh, I answered that question intelligently, Steve. Steve,
(51:48):
your background, how'd you become such a decent human being?
Let's unpack this. I just the more I like, the
more I hang around you, the more I like. You
tell us where you grew up, how you grew up,
and how'd you get here as a human being.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Well, I grew one of five, second oldest, and you know,
family didn't have much and so they did have a
sense of self worth and they were active in their
own ways in the community. So I had some role
(52:28):
models in that regard growing up, and I probably didn't
deserve the education opportunity I got, but somehow they figured
out how to get five of us through a parochial
education and that was very discipline based and that was
good for me because I I might have gone astray.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
But for.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
I refer to them as sisters of no mercy and
they didn't have any on me early on in life,
and so I and I needed it. So anyway, that
that all led to to uh uh you know, a
route where I was in a position with grandparents and
parents and seeing that you know, we didn't think we
(53:15):
were poor. We prayed for the poor. We didn't know better.
Tell me about all my dad always had most of
my life, had two jobs. I worked five and a
half six days a week and my mother worked as well,
So you know, it was just expected.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Did they tell you they loved you?
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Of course yes, so you heard that in the house
you didn't have money, but you had you had love.
And even though your dad had these challenges, was he
able to work around that to still embrace you?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
And it was?
Speaker 1 (53:49):
It was in other words, was it was the challenges
in the household a hindrance or just something that you
guys managed through and you somehow understood even despite that
he loved you.
Speaker 5 (53:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Uh. Addiction is uh problematic for the people around because
it's hard to understand, particularly as a as a child.
Uh and you had some of this too as you
were growing up, John, So, uh, you know what I'm
talking You know what I'm talking about. And unfortunately, when
I was in college, he caught himself. He decided only
(54:21):
that the person with the addiction can do this. He
caught himself and he had another I don't know, seven
eight years of largely a sober lifestyle, slip, slip now
and then and then come back. But uh, you know,
it took a lot of will because he he uh
(54:42):
he he uh he imbibed uh uh for many many
years and so it took a lot of There was
strength of character, strength of will there that that brought
him around. So in some ways a role model. And
it caused me to to uh study addiction and you know,
Alcoholics Anonymous and other material that might have been available
(55:04):
back in the late seventies and early eighties and get
some basic level of what was what he was struggling with.
And so it made me somewhat more aware and sensitive
to issues ultimately including mental health.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yes, what I the reason I wanted the backstory and
Steve and I do have this in common. My mom
and dad voice over money, and there was domestic abuse
in the house, and they told me they loved me,
and I believed it. My mother told me she loved
me every day in my life. My dad loved me too.
I'm a businessman and an entrepreneur to my dad was
a businessman and a hustler, and he was a businessman
(55:46):
because his dad was a sharecropper and all that. But
I wanted the audience to hear and for those watching
this on visual media to see that whether you're black
in urban or white in Midwestern, it's the same experience
and it's commonality of those experiences that build bonds and
(56:08):
relationships and friendships and understanding. Don't make presumptions. Don't make assumptions.
Just because this guy's running one of the top ten
commercial banks and top twenty banks in America doesn't mean
he hasn't had challenges and doesn't mean he doesn't understand
you and doesn't care. When you assume that he doesn't care,
(56:29):
you've lost. So that's why I want people to hear
your backstory. As we wrap up, and Steve, I really
have enjoyed this. I'd like you to spend the last
four to five minutes just riffing, Just what are the
lessons the points that you want that you've always you know,
we're all forer frustrated teachers a little bit, you know,
(56:51):
you rattle, you know, you and I talk about so
many things. We don't have time that we talk about
the state of this country and how divided it is
and all that. We don't have time to get in
all of that because it's as an hour season all
by itself. But all the things we can control in
our lives, the controls, what are some of the things
that you just it frustrates the bejeebers out of you
that you really just wish people would get their hands
(57:12):
on X, Y and z or or or if they
if you just they just would do this week before
they came to the bank.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
Or what what what?
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Whatever you want to say, I want people to get
five minutes of uninterrupted wisdom from you.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
Well, successful people have some common traits. They don't give up,
right because you don't. Success is very rarely is it
a straight line. Normally, there's a lot of hardship, setbacks, failure,
But you don't give up. They're driven and they they
(57:53):
channel that drive somehow into something productive. In my case,
it was a design to get better, to learn, and
to see a world bigger than three thousand people, which
was the size of the town I grew up in,
and and and get the benefit of of of of
being able to be with really interesting and great people
(58:16):
like you, John, and with all that you've done. And
so I've had a lot of blessings in my life,
but there've also been hardships and and and yet not
letting those hardships define who you are, figure out ways
to rise above them, work around them, don't quit, don't quit.
(58:40):
And if you if you believe in yourself, you may
not know where you're going. I had no idea in
my case, but I knew I wanted more and I
would work hard for it, and I was going to
live my life with certain principles. And I've generally been
able to do that for the last sixty seven years.
(59:03):
And so I feel very fortunate that I had some
people along the way who influenced me early on grandparents,
often on parents, and many others, including people like you,
who've devoted their life to trying to help others. And
(59:25):
I've had because of my profession, I've had the opportunity
in different areas of the country to meet just some
phenomenal people who have really devoted their life to helping others.
And so I admire you, I admire them. I learned
from you and them, and I want to keep getting better.
(59:45):
And I hope I've got a bit of a road
in front of me and an opportunity to influence others
and if you will pay it forward, because I've had
a wonderful set of opportunities that somehow came my way.
I don't know how it happened, but you know, we
have some common elements. Work hard, care, do the right thing,
(01:00:10):
try and get better, try and help others. And those
are some of the essential elements that as I think
about my life, have marked it and have created the
executive and the person that I am. I should say
person and the executive put it in the other order,
just as you've defined yourself as a person and then
(01:00:33):
an incredibly successful entrepreneur and executive by all the different
things you've done. But it's you as a person in
the first instance. And I think people generally want to
do the right thing, they just don't always catch themselves.
And I think if we start with a basis of
(01:00:54):
I want to do good. I want to help others.
I want to help myself, but in help helping myself,
I want to help others. It can align into for
those fortunate to be the next John Hope Bryans and
maybe when I retire a successor here at Huntington something.
(01:01:17):
It's been a pleasure to be with you, John.
Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
It's been my pleasure. As we wrap up, I'm gonnaee
if I can summarize what I just heard. Give been
focusing more focused on what you give than what you get.
Understand that no one's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. You can
make a mistake and not be one. Never give up,
(01:01:40):
never give in. Live for something larger and more important
than yourself. Have a purpose. Those are some of the
things that I heard. Of Course, be authentic. If somebody's
calling Huntington Bank, if you are near one of its
branches or whatever, uh, and you want to access capital
with this bank, don't play a game. Call them, be
(01:02:02):
honest with them. They're going to find out anyway, right,
Just be straight and you're gonna get credit for being straight.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Is that right, Steve?
Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
That's right, that's right. And there may be a period
where we just can't do something but my colleagues, not
all of them, but they are a number that we'll
engage and work with and try and help and ultimately
we'll create a success, whether that's a first time home
(01:02:32):
or first time business or other things.
Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Or left local. So so thank you very much, Steve Steinauer.
He's got to go run one of the twenty largest
overall banks in America and to have have ten commercial banks,
and I appreciate him giving us an hour to unpack
the mysteries of banking and to replace it with the
stairsteps of your success. Steve, I'll see you at a
(01:02:58):
meeting around town. I'm sure run into you in the
next thirty days somewhere.
Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
I love you very much, brother. And this has been
Money and Wealth on the.
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio, Go Change Your Life. Money
and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome The Money in Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iheartradioy, Hey, this
is John O'Bryant and this Money in Wealth podcast series
on iHeartRadio and the Black Effect Network. I want to
(00:23):
thank you all for making this book, this podcast, or
the book top one hundred Amazon. By the way, Capitalism
for all you haven't got a copy, get it. I
want to thank you all also for making the podcast
Money and Wealth top two hundred on top two hundred
and fifty on every continent in the world, top forty
to fifty Entrepreneurship in America, and top one percent of
(00:44):
all podcasts. And we are getting into season three with
some powerhouse guests. I don't normally have guests on the podcast.
You know, it's normally me just pouring into you for
forty five minutes. But when I have a guest, you
know it and they are special. My guest today is
Steve Steineu.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
That name in this you're in banking, probably he's got
a household name to use.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
If if you're in banking, you know, he leads one
of the biggest banks in America, Huntingdon Bank. And if
you don't know who he is. Well consider yourself lucky, fortunate, blessed,
and soon enlightened and full disclosure. Steve is a friend
(01:34):
of mine and I even consider him a mentor of mine.
He's done two things to me and for me that
I don't know if I told him personally.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
That showed me who he was. Number One.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
When I was trying to build operation and hope and
take it to us next to the next level, he
agreed to join the whole Global Board of Advisors, our
inaugural group as a founding board member, and he stayed
on for a year. He was busy, didn't have time
to do it. He was on for a year, then
he left. But him coming on the board set the standard.
(02:08):
And now we have the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas
City President, We've got all these luminaries, fort the CEO
of Delta Airlines, all these they call him big ballers
and shot collars from all sorts, all walks of life.
But they wouldn't have done that had they not found
credibility with their peers being on the board. So by
him saying yes early on and showing up the board meetings,
(02:31):
I remember he discouraged me from doing virtual meetings. He said,
you know, he's used to showing up in person and
being present. And I learned a lot from him backing me.
The second time he did something that was extraordinary was
he was a governor of Ohio who was a Republican.
And I'm not I'm not a partisan player. But you know,
(02:54):
folks would assume, maybe for the work I do, that
I'm not a Republican. I don't know why. They just
that I'm going to be fair. I'm an independent, but
I'm not. I'm not political in any way. And that
didn't matter to Steve. Steve thought the work that we
were doing is important and Republicans and Democrats need to
know about it. And I've served three presidents from both parties,
(03:16):
Republicans and Democrats, Bush Clinton pre and post president or
during presidency and post and President Obama. President Bush is
where I got actually the most work done. Oddly enough,
and Steve Steinauer said, come with me, and we left
(03:36):
his office and we went through what I call an
underground tunnel. It was a connected walkway to this capital.
And he took me to the Governor's office and put
his arm around me and said, this is my guy.
To the governor and we had a great relationship as
a result of that, he and his governor, his then governor,
and I just thought that was very special. Again, these
(03:57):
were two things that were done with no wh he
was looking just quiet leadership. And Steve, I want to
just thank you publicly for backing me and backing the
work because you thought it was important to do.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Ladies and gentlemen, and I still do, John, I still
think the work is very important in some ways, even
more important today. But it was kind of you to
lower the bar and let me join your board for
a year and get into that founder circle. It was
it was I think very helpful for the team, both
(04:35):
board and your team at the time because I remember
our first meeting. I offered you a couple of thoughts
about how to engage the directors get the benefit of
the mind share there, and you did that expertly. And
that's when I knew I've made a contribution. I can
now retire and let you give that seat to someone
(04:55):
more worthy. So happy to have had that time with you,
and of course over the many years subsequently in different
forums and in different undertakings, but you were kind to
let me sort of give you that personal escort over
to you're a rock star. So we walk over to
the Leverage J six office and the governor was, I think,
(05:18):
a great governor and also he's a good friend. I
was just talking to him. Man and a good man,
great heart, very religious, very very ethical, and it's done
wonderful things for the country throughout his service over time.
And I knew the two of you would connect, you
just like that, because you cut out of the same cloth.
(05:38):
You care about people, you care about outcomes, and you
want to help. And it was one of these rare
moments for me to be able to see an introduction
come together with such a dynamic impact.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So and we need more of that, like my pleasure, Steve,
thank you. We need more leaders like Steve Steinauer in
the world today.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Know what mean by that?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
He takes me to a Republican governor's office when he
didn't have to do it, and then he sponsors the
Urban League in Ohio for a speech where when I
showed up, he didn't just sponsor the speech. He's at
the dinner with the Urban League leadership. He's he's home.
This is these people know him, he's their friend. So
he can go from black to white, or rich to poor,
(06:24):
or conservatives liberal or the other way around, and get
respect in both rooms. Now you may say, Okay, there's
a lot of people I know who can do that.
Really do they do? They run a bank with two
hundred and eighty billion dollars plus in assets, and my
guess is the assets have grown beyond that number. But
the last number I had of their asset site for
(06:47):
hunting And Bank's two hundred and billion dollars. And Steve
Steinhauer and his group have partnered with Operation Hope on
a program that we call Lift Local Business Huntingdon's Left
Local Business program that's directed two hundred and forty six
(07:08):
million dollars in book loans to folks from underserved communities
for small business sixty million of which that we have
tagged we have identified to black owned businesses alone as
three and eighty six small businesses serve twenty four hundred
(07:29):
and twenty active operational business entrepreneurial training courses used. So
we are active partners with Hunting the Bank. Let me
give you a bit of background from Steve and then
let him cut loose here with wisdom, because you're going
to get a chance to hear from a chairman CEO
of a top bank in the biggest economy in the
(07:49):
world and learn something about how this system actually works.
So he's chairman, president and chief executive officer of Huntingdon
Bank or Bank Shares and president CEO of hunting A
National Bank.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Now he will hopefully unpack what this means.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But essentially one is a holding company and one as
an operator is where the operating bank. You would know
Huntington National Bank. That's where you if you're a client,
that's where you do business and where you interact. He's
led the bank to two thousand and nine. The bank
was born the year after the Freedman's Bank, by the way,
in eighteen sixty six. Before hunting And he was managing
(08:28):
partner at Cross Harbor Capital Partners. Early in his career,
he was president CEO of Citizens Financial Group. I actually
might have met him, I think at Citizens Financial Group.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I think in Boston. I I'm mistaken. It was a
division anyway, and he was.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
An executive vice president vice president at Bank of New England.
He started out as in public service as an analyst
of the US Treasury Department. They later worked for the
FDI C Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation also serves on the
board of directors. A bit of bath in body works.
I want to get my product from my wife, by
(09:05):
the way, from from there, and he has a reputation
that is rooted in compassionate, ethical, results oriented leadership, and
I can personally certify that that's absolutely the case.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I can.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I'm gonna talk more and more about the credentials as
we go in the conversation. But let's get into this
Steve Steinauer. First of all, let's get a bit of
the backstory.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
The Huntington family goes back many many decades. In fact,
a couple of centuries. The governor of Connecticut who signed
the Declaration of Independence was a Huntington, Samuel Huntington, and
the family was quite large and very extensive in terms
of their activities throughout the US. And so Huntington Ingersoll
(10:02):
in Mississippi, the largest shipyard in Mississippi, employees about twenty
thousand people. That was a Huntington family member. Huntington, West Virginia,
Huntington Beach, California.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
The Huntington were very very large into the trans Continental
Railway in California. Huntington California, California, and so they're the
art museum out there, and the one of the family
members ended up hunting the beach. One of the family
members ended up in eighteen sixty six, a very physically
(10:34):
large gentleman who wanted to the.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
National Road went from Washington, d C. To Columbus, Ohio,
and it stopped in Columbus at that time, and so
this is where goods and merchants and services flowed through.
It was either the Erie Canal or the National Road.
And he felt there was an opportunity to do good
business and help people. And Honey at that time was
(11:03):
was born, and Columbus was a you know, it was
the end of the road. It was. It just wasn't
that much. It was probably a small town when he started,
but it quickly became a city in a city of
some importance to the country. The National Highway ultimately extended
to Indianapolis. But the the the the the effort here
(11:27):
by P. W. Huntington and then his sons extended the
impact of the family for many decades. And the family
always was very good to the community. So the library
was started with some funding by the Huntington Bank and
(11:51):
family and others. Of course, one of the larger nonprofits here,
it's been in existence well over a century does Meals
on Wheels, does a variety of public service providers. Was
founded in the living room of the hunting one of
the Huntington family members, and we've had a board member
on that board for over a century. So there's this
(12:14):
deep legacy of trying to be good to the community,
give back and those Uh. That DNA that's been formed
is frankly part of what attracted me to the company.
It's important to the community that we serve the community
or I mean the community, I mean the full community,
the entire community, black, white, et cetera. And uh, you know,
(12:38):
people of high income and people of very low income
or even no income. Think about those that are homeless
or uh, you know suffering other other other debilitating issues. So, uh,
this legacy, I think is imbued in many of our colleagues.
We have very long service colleagues there fifty we've had
(13:01):
sixty year colleagues who've worked here.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And so this.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Set of values transcended me. I inherited it. I've tried
to enable it, tried to further build upon it. But
it's not something I created these Midwest values, you know, religion, family, respect,
service to country. These are values that I didn't create.
(13:30):
They're present throughout this region. And yet our company, as
a consequence of how we've operated over now one hundred
and sixty years, has built a bit of a brand,
a reputation, a halo if you will, about trying to
be good to people, trying to help businesses, and certainly
trying to help the communities we serve.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
And when I think about folks under who you lead
about brand Standardchho's a good man An and others, they
have that same spirit and that, with all due respect,
comes from the top. It comes from you, Steve, and
I'm not gonna let you get away from the fact
that you are leaders.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I want other people to model your leadership. And also.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Their sense of showing up being PhD dudes as well
as PhDs in their mindset is reflected in how you
show up in community. When I showed up here in
Atlanta to give a speech for the Columbus Partnership, you
were there in the room. I mean, here's a chairman
CEO one of the biggest banks in the world who
took time to come to Atlanta just look at Atlanta
(14:39):
as a model. And then I went to Columbus again
to speak for the Columbus Partnership, which is in and
of itself a great partnership for how city build itself
with private public partnerships. I walk in the room there
once again there's Steve statt Steinauer. It's not like you're
not busy. Why do you put a premium on showing up?
(15:04):
How does that relate to the image that you have
of this being the people's bank? How does this cross
pollinate with how you run the bank. And finally, in
this set of questions, what's the purpose of bank? And
how do people what's a cheat sheet? People can cheat sheets?
Probably wrong way to say a banker? What is a
what is a easy lesson that people can grasp of?
(15:30):
How to get the attention of their banker?
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Five questions? Let me start with the fourth one. UH,
if I may right, I believe that the company, the
bank has a purpose. I fundamentally believe that, and we
express that uh in our purpose statement. But we talk
about it all the time. I'll talk about two groups
senior leaders in two days.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
We're here to.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Help people lead better life, help businesses thrive, and to
make the communities better, better, stronger. And we have our
business model is that the intersection of commerce flows of money,
and so that puts us in a position where we
can extend ourselves, try to do the right thing and
(16:21):
help people and businesses. You reference Lift Local Early program
we've done in partnership with you and your team, which
has been over by the way, and you know, these
are efforts to get into the neighborhoods and make micro loans.
And so when you make in two hundred and fifty
plus thousand and fifty plus million dollars a micro loan,
(16:42):
that's a lot of micro loans. But we've done some
partnership with you because it would be like giving away
money if people didn't understand. And this is what they
get through the training program that you offer that creating
a business needs to have certain elements. You show them
the essential elements. We give them loans. Now these are
(17:07):
SBA loans. These are loans to businesses that are in
most cases just starting, so the credit access generally wouldn't
otherwise be there. And and and yet the performance over
time because these people have been trained, they've been educated,
and that's a big word. Education's literacy right, that that
(17:29):
has spawned jobs in neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn't be there.
It's created business owners who wouldn't otherwise be business owners.
It's it's it's it's capitalism, as you describe it in
your your various books, but particularly I think in your
new book, which I had the privilege of reading an
advanced copy of John So I think, well, I'm trying
(17:54):
to but you know, I'm a banker, so it's I'm
slow and everything, but but I think those elements are essential.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Then.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Now that's two of your five questions. But for people,
you know, the fifth one was it's really important to
get educated. It's really important, whether it's financial education or
anything else, to keep learning, to challenge yourself. And there's
more and more capacity to do that now with these
AI tools and and and and and other digital means
(18:25):
which didn't exist when you and I were growing up.
We had to do it the hard way, right. I
remember the first time somebody said to me you should
make a budget. I had no idea what a budget was.
My family were blue Clollars. They didn't have a budget.
My father was an alcoholic, you know, he didn't have
a he wasn't functional to be able to put a
(18:48):
budget together. So you learn these things over time, but
you you have a persistency about it. And you've used
this word before in various forums where you don't fail
if you don't quit, and so that persistency is really important.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And by the way, that's a Tony Wrestler quote. I'll
give good, We'll give credits due one of our dear friends,
Tony Wrestler is that if you don't quit, you can't fail.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
One of my partners and friends continue on Steve.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
But that's that attitude of willingness to learn, take some risk,
do the right thing, work hard. As you we were
talking before you started taping. You know you're working eighteen
hours a day, and you've been doing it for so
long it's like part of your life rhythm, right to
a certain extent, not quite the same hours, but to
(19:43):
a certain extent. That's the way I've embraced the opportunity
of being a banker, and I know others do and
their different different career pursuits. It's a privilege to be
able to do the things we do. Think of the
millions of people you're helping. In our case, hundreds of
thousands of businesses and maybe a couple million people. But
(20:05):
you know, we make a mortgage loan, that's helping somebody do.
I'll make a home improvement loan, give them all a loan,
start a small business. We're the largest SPA lender in
the country by volume. These things matter.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Slow that down. Say that again, you're the largest what.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
We're the largest SBA lender in the country by the
number of loans we make, and.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So these things that's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So we help. We're in the position where we can
help a lot of people and a lot of businesses.
And so there's a great sense of self satisfaction, a
great sense of pride in my colleagues who do all
the work. Anyway, I'm just a show horse and letting
letting these results flow through. So there's a shareholder return
(20:51):
as well in the equation. But you know, do you
and you've said this before, doing well by doing good,
it's this balance. It doesn't be one of the and
I believe that. I've always believed that.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So Steve, I got to correct him a couple of
times Steve. Steve said, oh, I'm a slow and I'm
trying to get around. Look, here's the endorsement in my
book from Steve stein This is my newest book, Come
About Big, Fastened the Draw.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
It's my newest book.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Steve's already he made sure that his support for what
we do was front and center. So when you get
the book, turn to right to the front and you'll
see Steve Steinauer's endorsement of the book. Johna's focused on
exactly the issues we face today as a society and
a challenge and the challenges of aligning our goals and
(21:43):
institutions and partnership to build the next stage of growth
and opportunity for all Americans. Inclusive economics can be our
future roadmap for the dreams of prosperity, must be attainable
and aspirational for hard work, education, and shared values. He
shows a compelling path forward at a time when we
need to come together. What did I describe him as
(22:05):
the guy who was at the Urban League meeting, and
he was at the Republican governors meeting. And I see
him at the White House. I see him at your
house trying to financi your ouse. I see him in community,
I see him at the Columbus Partnership. I see him
showing up in his own family. And so why is
the People's bank, because you know he's a top twenty
bank in America, the artist SBA lender by volume. I
(22:28):
didn't know that he's They've they've done two hundred and
fifty give or take two hundred and fifty million dollars
with operation and hope in this Huntington's Left local business
program that we're partnering on to do micro lending for
the least of these God's children, because every big business
was once a small one.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
So but at the core of.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
This, as you've heard, he acknowledged without any prompting, his
own person, part of his own personal background, his decency,
his accessibility. He can't lend money, can't be a good
lender unless he has his hand on the post of
the community. Let me give you say something that Steve won't.
And then I want to go to your background, Steve. Uh,
(23:09):
background and banking background in banking, personal background and professional
banking or banking has it works just to.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Tea that up.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
An entrepreneur needs a banker, and the banker needs the entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
The Banker's gonna say and the attorney's gonna say ah,
slow down, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
That's their nature. The conservative, by nature they're supposed to be.
The banker keeps the entrepreneur from running off the road
and into a ditch or into a wall. Uh. The
entrepreneur and attorney only prosper if the banker. Sorry, the
banker and the attorney only prosper the entrepreneur uh is successful. Conversely,
(23:50):
the entrepreneur needs the fuel and the protection from what
will be the banker. The entrepreneur and the accountant without
capital with out banking, and banking is to Wall Street
what Wall Street is to the biggest businesses in the world,
which is a source of capital. And so this is
(24:13):
a mutually beneficial relationship. But the entrepreneur's gonna be frustrated
a little bit by the banker tapping on the brakes, and.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
The banker's gonna be frustrated and bemused.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
A little bit by the entrepreneur who's got his foot
on his or her foot on the gas. But this
constructive friction, this dynamic tension, is precisely what makes the
engine go. Everybody sort of respects each other's role. My
job is to make that banker. Steve's bankers and his
example comfortable with me that I'm a good credit risk,
(24:44):
that I'm not going to embarrass them, that if there's
a problem, I'm gonna tell them first and not let
and then I'm gonna find out by themselves that if
they're challenge they wanted to chase me, I'm gonna call
them and work out a restructuring or payment relation. I
have to have credibility. Credit till comes on the Latin
would work. Credit comes a lot to work. Credit till
which is credibility, and capital comes a lot to work.
(25:05):
Copy toask knowledge in the head. I've got to have
enough knowledge and enough credibility. So the banker says, this
is a good credit risk. Now did I have that right?
Or do you need to correct me with any of that?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Steve?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Number two, how does what I say expand into the
broader context of banking? And number three, you can do
this anyway you want your personal story, how does it
inform everything else that you do?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Well?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
You got number one right. That is the nature of
the business model. We're looking to lend. If you will
rent money, right, extend alone a lot of capital. It's
used to create income hopefully wealth over time for individuals
(25:59):
and businesses, but that base level of the loan plus
some interest gets repaid. So capitalism at its essence, and
I think this is really important for us as a
society to make sure that capitalism becomes accessible to all
and it flows, It just flows. So that's number one. Now,
(26:23):
I think John, the nature of our our work and
sort of the way I was brought up have parallels.
My grandparents had a lot of influence on me growing up.
They My grandfather worked until he was in his late seventies.
He was a blue collar worker and never made much money,
(26:45):
but he found pride in doing work, and his compliment
to you would be if you're a worker, not not
if you're out having fun or do you know, it's
did you did you do a good job? That always
resonated with me, and that became part of what motivated
me early in my career. And because I didn't know better,
(27:09):
I didn't know that, you know, the probabilities of me
being a CEO of the tenth largest commercial bank in
the country were almost infinite, you know, one and ah,
you know, a couple hundred plus million, So I didn't
didn't think about it. In the terms of playing the
odds here. I just wanted to do the right thing.
(27:31):
I wanted to learn, I wanted to get better, and
I still have those you know, that yearning and just
like you do, which is why you do what you do.
You're going to help people. I think throughout your life,
right when your life's over, if you are in that
last moment, I suspect you will be helping someone. You know,
(27:53):
your family, of course, but beyond your family, you'll be
helping people because that you have that in your body,
in your spirit. You have that insatiable desire to make
an impact. And you've done it throughout all your life.
You've done it since you were nineteen. And for me,
(28:13):
it took a little bit longer to start because I
was unclear what I wanted, although I knew I wanted
some of these elements, and I wanted to move out
of a small town. I didn't grow up in la
like you did, and so I didn't know what a
big city. A big city to me is, you know,
five thousand people it was at the time, but you know,
(28:37):
so things progress and you learn and you you you
you know, you create relationships, you hopefully can find people
like you, and hundreds of thousands of people who watch
your videos, who watch you on YouTube, who listen to you.
Now you know you're impacting and some of what you
(29:00):
say and do they'll follow. And so you know you
have this incredible opportunity now with your podcast to impact
lives around the world. And I know that for you,
it's very motivational.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, and I want it is very motivational.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And every time I talk to you privately or publicly,
I'm inspired by you. I want people to understand two
things before they get off this podcast with us today.
One your backstory, which we're gonna get to no matter
how many times I have to ask you, but we
can get to that in a moment. I really want
to drill down to how do you get become such
a nice, decent human being that I actually like and respect.
(29:41):
But before we get to that, please unpack as best
you can the mystery of banking for the general audience.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
What are some.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Just misnombers or presumptions or mistakes of understanding misperceptions about
banking that we can clear up right here, right now
to hopefully help to set people free.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Sure, well, John, you touched on this a little bit
earlier in terms of how you you you act right,
if you're We view it as a relationship and a
factor of trust, and if there's an issue, you'll communicate it.
If there's a problem, you'll work to solve it. Those
elements of a relationship are so very important. And it's
(30:31):
harder as these banks get bigger and and you know,
are the pace of life accelerates around us. But I
think that's still the essence of good banking and good
business people and relationships. Technology enables, but it's people in
(30:51):
relationships and so connecting and you know, your word is
your bond, and and it is for me. I can't
legally do business on a handshake, but if I could,
there would be people like you I would do it with.
Can't do that anymore, but we can connect with each
(31:14):
other and look at each other, get a general understanding
of what you're hoping to achieve, look at it, maybe
a little more in depth, depending on what the aspiration
and need is. And then you know, we've got to
document it with a legal document. But when we say
we're going to do something looking at each other, making
(31:34):
a handshake, whatever it is, and we do it, we
do it. The rest of it's a formality. So I
think that approach of building credibility and trust is really important.
I was sitting do one story. I was sitting at
an event we had a couple of years ago, and
one of the retired Supreme Court state justices here said
(31:56):
she loved banking with us, and I said, thank you.
I thought it was one of these like obligatory things.
She's at our events, she's saying it, and I said, no,
I really do. And I said, well, tell me why
you do. Because I couldn't go to college unless I
borrowed money, and my mother went to every bank, and
you were the last stop. You were the last stop.
(32:17):
If you didn't make that loan, I wasn't going to college, right.
And I don't hear that a lot, but I hear
it with some regularity where what we've done has made
a difference. We have a program that we talk about
in our mortgage lending where we try to make it
(32:39):
real for our colleagues. It's called a home not a file,
because you process hundreds of thousands of mortgage loans, but
when you connect it with the video of why that
home was important to that individual, oftentimes it's a first home.
(32:59):
It it you can't help but be drawn in. You're
you're you're obviously making a loan and you're doing doing
your work, but you're impacting lives and it could be
a family, could be somebody el rely, could be a vetteran,
it could be somebody disabled. You're impacting lives. So we
are blessed with the nature of the business we do.
And that's what I find so inspirational. And for me
(33:23):
coming from a like a very rural background, blue collar.
You know, if you said CEO, I, you know, it
could have been a donut for all I knew. I
had no idea what that was growing up. And so
it's this steady learning and willingness to engage with others
and against the value set of trying to help people.
(33:46):
And I think our industries replete with I know here
at Huntington, our colleagues feel that way. They want to help,
they want to do the right thing, they want to
help people. And uh, that's why we talk about a
purpose statement so often.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
So something's odd about the way to the audience, they
will hear it, not odd for me. They will hear
what you're saying, and they just they're going to a
lot of the audience members going to scratch their heads
because they're like, no, wait a minute. This guy's basically
saying he wants to make loans, he wants to provide
access to capital, that if somebody's reasonable and trustworthy and
(34:22):
all that stuff, he's going to make them alone. But
aren't banks, you know, discriminatory? That's what they've heard. Aren't
banks racist? Is what they've heard. And what I would
say is, if you're dealing with a bank one hundred
and fifty years ago or two hundred years ago in
America and that bank was family owned in a small
town in the South or wherever, or maybe even the Midwest,
(34:45):
if that was a small, family owned bank, they might
have been had some interesting views in the world, and
they were basically only lending to their friends and family
members and business owners that they knew, and they were
of the size they could do that, and they could
make money just on recycling that capital amongst their crew
of boutique businesses and whatever. But banking, I'm saying this,
(35:06):
but making a statement. This is the statements leading to
a question, Steve. But banking has changed.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
In my view.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Banks now are now mostly publicly traded Uh, they're highly
regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, by the Federal
Reserve in some cases. Going to meet the FED chairman
actually later this week. I think it's a good man
by maybe in some cases by the o SEC the
Office the Contra of the currency, in some cases by
a state regulator, and the consumer protection Consumer Protection Agency
(35:36):
also in some cases and in the SEC also possibly
securities exchange because they're publicly traded. And I've got the banks,
I mean everybody essentially, if you have a diversified portfolio,
you've got banks shares in your four oh one K plan.
The bank has to make loans if they're going to
be profitable and successful. They can't afford to do it
(35:58):
was they were. If they were backwards at the leader
ship level, they can't. If they were not a stage
state Steve Steinauer, they were the opposite of Steve.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
They couldn't afford to do.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Racist policies, to be blunt with it in twenty twenty six,
because there's too much competition and you'll go out of
business because racism is a bad business model. And before
you answer that, I'm gonna answer a question that you
didn't that just below your pay grade. Let me just
say this banking is basically administrative costs, well, cost of savings,
(36:27):
costs of the money to say it's a savings account.
Administrative costs, let's say two percent on top of that, uh,
and then profit let's say that's three percent whatever, pick
a number, and that combined is the cost of capital.
And they want to make that rent that out. As
Steve said, he want to rent it out, rent it out,
and he wants to make some assurances. Bankers want to
(36:48):
have some insurance. They've gotta get it back because they're
just renting the money and they have to get it back,
so they could rent it out to somebody else, and
they need that profit that's inmbedded there? Did I do
a decent job and going over two hundred years of
banking and why banking has changed such that they should
listen to what you're saying now about being the people's banker.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Well, I think there are a lot of people like
me in the industry, so I'm not special by any stretch.
So begin with that. But the nature of what we
do you describe very accurately. You know, these bank branches,
there's a certain amount of cost in running the operation.
(37:36):
So when we're renting money, it's the cost of the deposit,
what's the interest paid on it, it's the overhead, and
then there's a profit margin. But the nature of what
we're doing is very competitive at thousands and thousands of
banks and even more credit unions, and so the the
the impetus to make more loans is in the business model.
(38:03):
It's in the business. It's inherent in the business model.
Good loans, so loans that will ultimately get repaid. And
so whether it's a bank or credit unior, some other
financial institution that does this type of business, I think
there's a capacity inherent to extend credit and we certainly
(38:25):
view that as an opportunity. Now we build relationships. We
don't just make loans. We have checking accounts, we have
credit cards or debit cards. Maybe have a mortgage or
a home improvement loan. Maybe it's a small business loan
or an SBA loan. Maybe we take care of some
(38:46):
of the financial planning and investments that the family or
the business wants to. Those sorts of things all add
up to a relationship. And that's the nature of our
business as opposed to well, we only make loans or
we only take deposits. And so that comes back to
people and relationships, and if you're trying to help people,
(39:08):
if you're trying to look out for what's in their
interests as well, because the better they do, the better
we do. The better the communities we serve do, and
the people in those communities, the better we do. We
have some amount of market share every place we're doing business.
The better that market does, that geography, that town, that city,
(39:28):
that region, the better we do. So there's a lot
of parallel interest in this equation. And I'm a big
believer that in capitalism and that capitalism will continue to evolve.
It will continue to I hope, have a conscious it'll
continue to make opportunities available for people of all races,
(39:52):
of all income walks of immigrants, and people that have
been here multi generations.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
The Lift Local program in the context of what you
just said, could be viewed, and this is I'm thinking
about my new book Capitalism for All and its theory,
it's philosophy of inclusive economics.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Growth of market share could be views.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Not only is it moral and the right thing to do,
not only to help you comply with community investment actor
or what other acts might be appropriate, but primarily, sorry,
I'm thinking this, this is a business development activity. You're
growing you like you're doing a research and development and
(40:42):
business development for an emerging market. You're hoping. I hadn't
put this together into this interview. Actually, Steve, as you
were talking, you're hoping. My guess is you're hoping.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
That these these micro loans build a relationship with you
and grow their business and join your portfolio as a
mainstream slaw business loan, and then.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Then go parallel park on individual family checking accounts and
savings accounts, and parallel park and a home mortgage as
they become a homeowner and multiple homeowners in that family,
as they build wealth in parallel park in the investment
banking group at Huntington, in parallel park in the private
(41:27):
banking group, as you built well in parallel park with
the investment management section of the I mean, am I
getting this right? I mean, it's it's it's it's enlightened
self interest.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
It is, it is, and it's it's in this umbrella though,
of doing good, helping people, helping businesses. And so that's
what your book on capitalism and what you've shared about
enlightened capitalism over the years, all about this isn't a handout,
This isn't a give away, right. This is intended to
(42:02):
make good decisions that benefit people in businesses, but also
benefit banks or other firms as they go forward. We
don't have to be limited by historic thinking you used,
(42:22):
you know, century and a half, two centuries ago, you know,
lending just to people you really knew. There's a lot
more information available now. The benefit of Lift Local and
the training program you provide your team does is that
there is a credible, third party national business resource available
(42:44):
to help people understand what they need to do, what
the expectations are if they're going to create a business.
And it's not for everyone. I mean it's really hard,
really hard. You were talking again about eighteen hours a day. Instance,
you're nineteen. A lot of people, our children look at
(43:04):
me and say, I don't want to work that hard,
which is their decision. You may have something similar cousins
or family members.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Oh yes, oh yes, right, But.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
For me it's a privilege. I don't see it as work.
I see it as something I'm fortunate to be able
to do. And I think you feel the sandwich one and.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I'm the most successful financially successful people in my person
in my lineage, my direct lineage, going back to slavery
to present. My second grade grandfather was a slave, as example.
And my wife's the most successful person in her lineage,
and her father is the most successful person in his
lineage and mom, and we have a responsibility being in
(43:50):
those positions to be compassion to be empathetic, but not
to give handouts, because that doesn't help anybody.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
You want to get a hand up and you and and.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
To teach people how to to do for themselves and
become independent. And yes, give them a little seedcorn, give
them a little encouragement, a little support, but at some
point you got to do for self. And one of
the things I want the audience to understand is the
one of the reasons that Operations Hope chose to not
be bank itself. Well, first of all, I didn't want
to compete with I didn't want to become the new
(44:22):
Freedoman's Bank and compete with my friend and partner Steve Steinower,
a hunting bank or whoever else, right, Uh, But I
could be a unique catalyst as an educator, as a counselor,
as a coach to get the people who are qualified
morally but not mathematically. Their credit score stinks to me,
(44:43):
he can't. Steve can't say it. He'll be sued. Somebody
will find some way, some way to sue him. Is
he's blunt, But I can be blunt. I'm not regulated
like that. If your credit score is told from the
flow up, Steve can't give you a loan, no matter
how much he likes you. And if your in the
average credit score for underserved population six hundred six point
(45:03):
twenty six point forty for big swashes of this country,
of all races, does not allow Steve to give you
a decent home loan at fixed rates, at prime rates.
He can't do it. He needs you at sixt eighty
to seven hundred. He can't give you a small business
loan because that's riskiest credit he's got, is a small
(45:25):
business loan, even with an SBA guarantee. He needs you
up in that seven hundred range if possible. Maybe he
can make some exceptions, but you shouldn't be looking for
the exception.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
You should be looking.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Is better to underestimate and overperform than underestimating or to overestimated,
underperform and Steve's and his people are looking for character
and not just credit. And if they see you aspiring,
seeing you working hard, seeing you trying, they may give
you that secure credit card or that account that you
actually don't really qualify but you're run on the edge,
(45:59):
but they want to see you then perform and prove
that they're right that go to the next level, then
the next span your credit line. And I mean that's
how it was for me coming up when I you know,
and and we have an unsecure credit line, seven figure
credit lines now, but I started out with a twenty
five thousand dollars credit line and operation to hope and
(46:19):
a three hundred dollars credit card for me. So I'm
telling you as a bridge to Steve and the one
of the twenty largest bank in America and ten fardest
commercial banks, I want you to be his client. I
want him to know your name. I want brand Standards
to call you and say, I'm just checking on you.
That's one of his top people at the bank. I
want Stacy to know who you are in the community.
(46:40):
But you've got to do your part to meet him
half way. Get the credit score up, the debt down,
savings up, so you meet his criteria so he doesn't
criticized by his regulator, the bank regulator. Did I explain
your conumdrum and your opportunity reasonably?
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Will? You did, John very well? As usual, you know
this so well. But you also offer a service to
try and help people improve their credit score. And so
let me turn the table here. So would with a
question for you, would you share with your listeners some
of the key ways they could do that, including working
(47:18):
with your team. But there are there are a couple
of steps in particularly, I think that they'd be common denominators.
Why don't you share those if you want? Please?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
U sure?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
So when you walk into a hunting in bank branch,
and by the way, what how many states are you?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
And Steve?
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Twenty one?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Okay? And how many branches do you have?
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Just about fifteen hundred? And how many employees do you have?
Twenty seven?
Speaker 2 (47:46):
So? And did I get the asset size right? Tw
it and eighty.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Billion two in an eighty plus. Yes, that's what I love.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
When you get the power you don't need to use,
it's like yeah, yes, give or take. It's much more
than By the way, if you want their attention, uh,
you've got to show intention. You've got to show that
you are credible. And they have limits regulatorily and statutorially
(48:16):
and with their shareholders about how far they can lean
into your life without putting themselves at risk. We bridge you,
We bridge them, so you ever look for hope inside
inside of hunting in the bank if you can find it,
or another institution, because you know they will take a
referral from another institution. By the way, and we can
get your credit score up initially by removing an error
(48:39):
if you have if you haven't checked your credit in
a couple of years, and that's a good portion of Americans,
there's a large possibility, significant possibility you have an.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Error on your credit report.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
If we challenge the three credit bureaus by sending a
letter I opperation to hope with your cooperation, the credit
bureaus have thirty days to respond to either confirm at
you or remove it. If they remove it, which happens
ninety percent of the time, that popped a credit thirty
points on average. So if you were at five eighty year,
(49:13):
now at sixteen, if you were at six hundred year,
now at six thirty. So the banker now sees oh
my god, you're making improvements. They note your file, and
so then we start working on a budget. He talked
about his dad didn't have a budget, he had a
he had all kind of other challenges deal with. I'm
gonna get to that his personal story in the minute.
I didn't know his backstory. But we're going to help
you create see a budget.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
And when we.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Do that, you're gonna find if you're spending a lot
of money on Starbucks or whatever it is you're spending
on that, you can go get a curate machine at home,
make your own coffee. Stop smoking it's gonna kill you anyway,
and save six thousand dollars a year. And if you're
making forty thousand dollars a year, well, heck that's you know,
more than ten percent of your annual income, and you
(50:00):
can recycle that at the savings. You can lower your
debt to income ratio, which is what they're looking for,
and get and get a saving out going. And then
we give you the earned income tax credit. Was you
making let's sixty thousand dollars a year? By the way, black, white, red, brown, yellow,
urban world doesn't matter. Uh. One o four Americans who
qualify for that never asked for it. That's if you
(50:22):
make it thirty eight thousand dollars a year, and in
Central Ohio as a teacher and you have three children,
the government owes you a check for about seven thousand
dollars if you never filed its retroactive for three years.
That's almost twenty thousand dollars you can use as the
down payment on the house from workers you're asking Steve
Steinauer for from Huntingdon Bank.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
And and then this goes on and goes on and
goes on.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
We can find credit, we can find you know, you
got a divorce ten years ago. That charge off of
one thousand dollars has probably been discounted significantly because they've
been chasing the debt and they sold it to Joe's
Finance company or something for five cents on the dollar. Well,
Steve's only concerned about where you where you resolved that.
So work with the operation to hope we'll contact Joe's
(51:04):
finance company who over owns it, will buy it, We'll
pay it off. You're gonna pay it off if we
negotiate it, and you're gonna get a discount, and they're
gonna get a profit, and Steve's gonna get this removed
from your credit report in a way that he can
say yes to you. In other words, now your credit
score goes up again. So we're gonna be the bridge
and the translator for you to do what you don't
(51:27):
know you can do, and to help you do and
help the bank do what they can't do, so the
bank can tell you yes. The bank does not benefit
if they can't say yes every day to providing capital
and credit cannot grow. So oh, I answered that question intelligently, Steve. Steve,
(51:48):
your background, how'd you become such a decent human being?
Let's unpack this. I just the more I like, the
more I hang around you, the more I like. You
tell us where you grew up, how you grew up,
and how'd you get here as a human being.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Well, I grew one of five, second oldest, and you know,
family didn't have much and so they did have a
sense of self worth and they were active in their
own ways in the community. So I had some role
(52:28):
models in that regard growing up, and I probably didn't
deserve the education opportunity I got, but somehow they figured
out how to get five of us through a parochial
education and that was very discipline based and that was
good for me because I I might have gone astray.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
But for.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
I refer to them as sisters of no mercy and
they didn't have any on me early on in life,
and so I and I needed it. So anyway, that
that all led to to uh uh you know, a
route where I was in a position with grandparents and
parents and seeing that you know, we didn't think we
(53:15):
were poor. We prayed for the poor. We didn't know better.
Tell me about all my dad always had most of
my life, had two jobs. I worked five and a
half six days a week and my mother worked as well,
So you know, it was just expected.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Did they tell you they loved you?
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Of course yes, so you heard that in the house
you didn't have money, but you had you had love.
And even though your dad had these challenges, was he
able to work around that to still embrace you?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
And it was?
Speaker 1 (53:49):
It was in other words, was it was the challenges
in the household a hindrance or just something that you
guys managed through and you somehow understood even despite that
he loved you.
Speaker 5 (53:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Uh. Addiction is uh problematic for the people around because
it's hard to understand, particularly as a as a child.
Uh and you had some of this too as you
were growing up, John, So, uh, you know what I'm
talking You know what I'm talking about. And unfortunately, when
I was in college, he caught himself. He decided only
(54:21):
that the person with the addiction can do this. He
caught himself and he had another I don't know, seven
eight years of largely a sober lifestyle, slip, slip now
and then and then come back. But uh, you know,
it took a lot of will because he he uh
(54:42):
he he uh he imbibed uh uh for many many
years and so it took a lot of There was
strength of character, strength of will there that that brought
him around. So in some ways a role model. And
it caused me to to uh study addiction and you know,
Alcoholics Anonymous and other material that might have been available
(55:04):
back in the late seventies and early eighties and get
some basic level of what was what he was struggling with.
And so it made me somewhat more aware and sensitive
to issues ultimately including mental health.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yes, what I the reason I wanted the backstory and
Steve and I do have this in common. My mom
and dad voice over money, and there was domestic abuse
in the house, and they told me they loved me,
and I believed it. My mother told me she loved
me every day in my life. My dad loved me too.
I'm a businessman and an entrepreneur to my dad was
a businessman and a hustler, and he was a businessman
(55:46):
because his dad was a sharecropper and all that. But
I wanted the audience to hear and for those watching
this on visual media to see that whether you're black
in urban or white in Midwestern, it's the same experience
and it's commonality of those experiences that build bonds and
(56:08):
relationships and friendships and understanding. Don't make presumptions. Don't make assumptions.
Just because this guy's running one of the top ten
commercial banks and top twenty banks in America doesn't mean
he hasn't had challenges and doesn't mean he doesn't understand
you and doesn't care. When you assume that he doesn't care,
(56:29):
you've lost. So that's why I want people to hear
your backstory. As we wrap up, and Steve, I really
have enjoyed this. I'd like you to spend the last
four to five minutes just riffing, Just what are the
lessons the points that you want that you've always you know,
we're all forer frustrated teachers a little bit, you know,
(56:51):
you rattle, you know, you and I talk about so
many things. We don't have time that we talk about
the state of this country and how divided it is
and all that. We don't have time to get in
all of that because it's as an hour season all
by itself. But all the things we can control in
our lives, the controls, what are some of the things
that you just it frustrates the bejeebers out of you
that you really just wish people would get their hands
(57:12):
on X, Y and z or or or if they
if you just they just would do this week before
they came to the bank.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
Or what what what?
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Whatever you want to say, I want people to get
five minutes of uninterrupted wisdom from you.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
Well, successful people have some common traits. They don't give up,
right because you don't. Success is very rarely is it
a straight line. Normally, there's a lot of hardship, setbacks, failure,
But you don't give up. They're driven and they they
(57:53):
channel that drive somehow into something productive. In my case,
it was a design to get better, to learn, and
to see a world bigger than three thousand people, which
was the size of the town I grew up in,
and and and get the benefit of of of of
being able to be with really interesting and great people
(58:16):
like you, John, and with all that you've done. And
so I've had a lot of blessings in my life,
but there've also been hardships and and and yet not
letting those hardships define who you are, figure out ways
to rise above them, work around them, don't quit, don't quit.
(58:40):
And if you if you believe in yourself, you may
not know where you're going. I had no idea in
my case, but I knew I wanted more and I
would work hard for it, and I was going to
live my life with certain principles. And I've generally been
able to do that for the last sixty seven years.
(59:03):
And so I feel very fortunate that I had some
people along the way who influenced me early on grandparents,
often on parents, and many others, including people like you,
who've devoted their life to trying to help others. And
(59:25):
I've had because of my profession, I've had the opportunity
in different areas of the country to meet just some
phenomenal people who have really devoted their life to helping others.
And so I admire you, I admire them. I learned
from you and them, and I want to keep getting better.
(59:45):
And I hope I've got a bit of a road
in front of me and an opportunity to influence others
and if you will pay it forward, because I've had
a wonderful set of opportunities that somehow came my way.
I don't know how it happened, but you know, we
have some common elements. Work hard, care, do the right thing,
(01:00:10):
try and get better, try and help others. And those
are some of the essential elements that as I think
about my life, have marked it and have created the
executive and the person that I am. I should say
person and the executive put it in the other order,
just as you've defined yourself as a person and then
(01:00:33):
an incredibly successful entrepreneur and executive by all the different
things you've done. But it's you as a person in
the first instance. And I think people generally want to
do the right thing, they just don't always catch themselves.
And I think if we start with a basis of
(01:00:54):
I want to do good. I want to help others.
I want to help myself, but in help helping myself,
I want to help others. It can align into for
those fortunate to be the next John Hope Bryans and
maybe when I retire a successor here at Huntington something.
(01:01:17):
It's been a pleasure to be with you, John.
Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
It's been my pleasure. As we wrap up, I'm gonnaee
if I can summarize what I just heard. Give been
focusing more focused on what you give than what you get.
Understand that no one's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. You can
make a mistake and not be one. Never give up,
(01:01:40):
never give in. Live for something larger and more important
than yourself. Have a purpose. Those are some of the
things that I heard. Of Course, be authentic. If somebody's
calling Huntington Bank, if you are near one of its
branches or whatever, uh, and you want to access capital
with this bank, don't play a game. Call them, be
(01:02:02):
honest with them. They're going to find out anyway, right,
Just be straight and you're gonna get credit for being straight.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Is that right, Steve?
Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
That's right, that's right. And there may be a period
where we just can't do something but my colleagues, not
all of them, but they are a number that we'll
engage and work with and try and help and ultimately
we'll create a success, whether that's a first time home
(01:02:32):
or first time business or other things.
Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Or left local. So so thank you very much, Steve Steinauer.
He's got to go run one of the twenty largest
overall banks in America and to have have ten commercial banks,
and I appreciate him giving us an hour to unpack
the mysteries of banking and to replace it with the
stairsteps of your success. Steve, I'll see you at a
(01:02:58):
meeting around town. I'm sure run into you in the
next thirty days somewhere.
Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
I love you very much, brother. And this has been
Money and Wealth on the.
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio, Go Change Your Life. Money
and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
John Hope Bryant
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