January 22, 2026 • 29 mins
Doug Kennedy - President & CEO of Peapack Private Bank & Trust
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, This is Steve Delson and welcome to this
week's edition of CEU. As you should know, I am
thrilled to be joined by Doug Kennedy, the president and
CEO of p Pack Private Bank and Trust.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Doug, thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Hey, thanks for having me Steve. It's great to be
with you.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We're excited to jump in and to kick it off.
So why don't we get things started. I know you
began your career as a teller, and now you lead
a high performing, performing financial institute. What key lessons did
you learn early on that you continue to influence your
leadership today.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
So if I think back on my life, and you know,
at fifteen, my father lied and said I was sixteen,
got me a job, and so I was always working
my entire life a paper route when I was ten
years old, and so I think, you know what, really
the foundation is just hustle and hard work is really
what I learned. And you know, I was worried. I
was a teller, which I met my wife, as you said,
(00:49):
we were both working our way through college, you know,
as a commuter student, you know, during the day, et cetera.
And again it was my responsibility that I had to
pay at least half my college tuition. So that's that's
kind of what you know, I would say the baseline
was is that you really have to work hard for
everything that you get.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, you have that hard work ethic right from the
very sum and obviously it's continued on all throughout the journey.
So I know that you've been in the industry for
over forty years, and I'm sure there may be some
moments or milestones that really stand out as a turning
part for your career.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
What are some of those?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Okay, So I have some great stories about my career
that I'll share with you. You know, I started out going
into a branch and if any of you have been
into a bank branch, there's three clocks that are there,
and the way it works is that all three clocks
get set and the first one that turns that gets
to like an alarm to the time it will allow
the vault to get open. And usually you have two
(01:41):
people do it just to make sure you don't screw
it up. Well, me, just coming out of college and
being really smart, I actually set the three clocks on
a holiday weekend and I blew it on the math
and on Tuesday morning when we came in, the vault
was still locked. We couldn't open it up till Wednesday.
I put an extra day in there.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
So needless to say that, the next move for me
was to move out of retail banking and went into
commercial banking. And my first day on the job, I
was at Yankee Stadium for a for a day game,
and my job was to go buy hot dogs and
beer for the clients that we were entertaining. And I came back,
I was married to my wife, and I said, I
have found my lot in life. Can you believe it?
(02:21):
It was a beautiful sunny days. I'm watching the New
York Yankees. I'm drinking beer and eating hot dogs, and
the bank is paying for it. So that's how I
became a commercial banker.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Love that life was good, very good.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, very very good.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So I know that you've been credited with transforming Peeback
Private into finance into really a financial service powerhouse.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
What's it?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Specific innovations or cultural shifts were the most critical to
that transformation.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So in a short the short word is people. It's
all about people and in culture. So if you, no
matter what industry you're in, including the radio business, theve
is culture means everything and key, and we work at
that very very hard in the company. You know, I
think that as I've gone through my career, you know,
I started out before interstate banking. It then became regional banking,
(03:09):
and then ultimately you know, national banking, and so through
no fault of my own banks that I was working
where got acquired. I went to a larger institution, to
a larger institution. I was at Fleet Bank, Bank of America,
I was at Northwark, then it became Capital One, and
through all of that you could just see this this
change that you know, the individual banker who was really
(03:32):
the relationship and the partner with the client, going back
to when the banks were smaller. What sort of changed
over time is that the brand became the company and
the people became incidental to it. And you know, that
sort of stuck with me. And you know, one of
the reasons why I sort of knocked on the door
at Pepac is that I felt there was a tremendous
(03:52):
opportunity of standing that bank up and filling that need
of personalized relationship banking that unfortunately has just disappeared through
consolidation and you know, the world just being more reliant
on technology and other avenues. And so it's sort of
like there's a lot of discussion earners about scale, like
the bigger you are, the more efficient you are, therefore
(04:13):
it's the most profitable. I would say that our business
model rejects that. I think what we do is we
decide where weekend provide value, where we can get paid
satisfactory for it, and that ultimately, you know, there's money
that we can provide to our shareholders.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And great perspective.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Speaking of culture and people, I know that your bank
consistently has been named the best place to work. What
leadership principles do you use to prioritize that really strong
internal culture that you spoke about.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So it's right, we're very proud of that. You know.
The American Banker actually, out of the sixty five hundred
banks in the country, they picked ninety and then they
stack rank it and the stack ranking to qualify over
half the employees have to go through a test and
it takes about twenty or five minutes, and a lot
of it is all about communication. I say, that's where
(05:00):
would come in and that then translates into engagement. So
do you know what the vision of the strategy the
company is? Do you believe that? Do you believe in
management and what they're where they're taking you? Do you
think that your voice is heard inside the company? You know,
do you understand how you're contributing to an overall success
of the company, et cetera. And you know, those those
(05:22):
kinds of questions, including ones like would you refer a
friend or have a family member come work at the bank?
And you know, people that are in the affirmative, it
means I'm proud of the place that I'm at and
so on and so forth. And then the other thing
that I sort of learned having been at bigger organizations
is that people that are folks that you would not
want to work with, you know what I would call
jerks or I describe it in other ways. But at
(05:45):
the end of the day, we sort of made a
conscious decisions as we've been building this out, is that
we really didn't want to spend any time with them,
regardless of how much business they could do or how
connected they were. If their personality wasn't and didn't fit
into who we were, then we yeally didn't want. And
I think those two factors of having people bound by
common principles and values that are genuinely good people, that
(06:09):
are you know, smart, that work collaboratively with each other,
that is the formula to be able to stand up
and compete and win against the larger institutions.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I love that philosophy. I wish every company had that.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know, it's so funny to me, having been at
all these companies, is that it seems like it's very,
very easy. And you know where I land in the
last year is that there's just certain human behavior. So
for example, in our journey, you could build a private bank.
I can go out and survey and figure out exactly
what product I need. I can build those products. I
can then hire a salesforce, a team that actually understands them,
(06:47):
you know, the technical aspects of what it is that
we do to be able to go out and sell that.
But at the end of the day, if we get
into client and we actually sell that vision the idea
of what they're going to experience, but then turn back
into the company where the middle office and the back
office don't have the values that the front office has
in terms of not saying no to the client right
(07:07):
out of the gate. To be you know, working with
a level of enthusiasm, you know, just really providing hospitality
level service both internal and external clients, the whole thing
breaks down. So trying to create something that's intimate, that
feels really personal and doing that in a very scaled
(07:28):
way is extremely hard. And if you built that company
through hundreds of acquisitions and you've had to integrate cultures
over time, it doesn't really completely gel together.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Sure, that makes sense, very smart way to look at
it in Congrats, that's an awesome accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You'd be proud of.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh, thanks very much, Steve.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Of course, I know outside of the professional world you
also have some passions outside of work, right we were
just talking about golfing before we jumped on, but also
flying or sailing. How have those passions helped influence your
leadership style or maybe you're justsion making behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
So the backstory on all of that is that twenty
years ago, my biggest fear in life, and everyone has one,
mine was flying. I was actually in Newark on a
plane and became so anxious I walked off the plane.
Oh my gosh, I wouldn't take the flight when I
was in vacation. I go on vacation, I could not
(08:23):
get on the little puddle jumper plane. In other words,
I was fully, like totally a frightened flight. So what
I decided to do was to research an airport up
in Moorestown in New Jersey, Northern Jersey. And I showed
up and I said, my biggest fear in life is
I want to conquer it. Can you teach me how
to fly a plane? And I handed him a visa
(08:44):
card and I said, young man, if you have enough
money on this visa card, you will be a pilot.
So over a course of two years of I was
able to get my pilot's license, and then I went
on to get my instrument writing, which means that you
can drive and you can fly and zero visibility becoming
a So I would say, look at the first lesson
(09:05):
in life is don't run away from your fears. If
you think that you have like a personal limitation, I
don't know that. I've never done that. I can't do that, Okay,
the moment your head says that, have the bravery to
push yourself into a non comfort zone and figure it out.
And when you do It's kind of like going to
(09:26):
the gym that you've lifted fifty pounds. Then the next
time you go, you're going sixty pounds, and seventy pounds
and eighty pounds. You will be surprised how far you
can go.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Talk about if you push yourself first.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yep. The boating is very analogous to it. I've been
on boats my whole life, and during COVID, it couldn't
go anywhere, it couldn't go in a vacation. So I actually
went online and I had enough I could document enough
time at sea to get my captain's license. So I
have my captain's license my pilot's license. And those are
the two passions. And I think what I would learn
and share with you is that in both instances, and
(09:59):
this is where he applied to the business, you always
want to be out in front of the plane, out
in front of the business. So what what does that mean?
It means that you know, for example, your career in radio.
I mean we were talking about my father was in radio,
and we were talking about you know, iHeart and how
the how many markets you serve and and the studio
tour that we just got et cetera. The world has changed,
(10:20):
you know, in such a dramatic way, and so I
think that being out in front of where the industry
is going is what you've always got to be looking
over the arc of the of the of the of
the the earth. For example, in a plane, you're doing
you're planning before you even get into it, days ahead
to see what the weather is going to be. When
you get in the plane, you're constantly looking if the
(10:41):
if the engine had to go out right now, where
am I going to put it down? So you're always
out in front of the plane. When before you come
into land, you check the wind, what direction is going
to come, how how fast is it blowing, what's the
what's the how is the runway, positions of the the wind,
So that when you fly in, you're not reacting to something,
you're already out in front of what could happen.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I absolutely love that.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
The same on a boat. And the boat you know,
my father taught me is that every you know, this
is before GPS and stuff, but every hour we'd have
a chart and I'd have to mark us where we were,
and when I marked it, it would be if something
happened in the next thirty minutes, what would I do,
you know, to what port would I go into or
what's my exit? And so I would say in business,
(11:26):
it's not you know, sort of sitting the job that
I'm in as CEO and sort of just deal with
what's in the moment. It's really trying to assess your environment,
what's going on in the industry. It's looking at what
your strengths and weaknesses are, and then it's trying to
position the company, you know, three to five years forward
as to where it's been and that's been the journey
that we've been on.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I love that. That's great advice. I love both of
those philosophies. Everyone could take a lesson from those. So
let's talk a little bit more about Peeback Private. We
touched on this earlier, but I know you really position
Peeback Private as that compelling alternative to larn banks. How
would you define and execute that vision different than any
other bank out there?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
The short answer is that the key behaviors that we
have to have because a big bank can't scale it.
So the first part, you know, if you wanted to
be a private bank, first of all, you have to
have sort of the DNA in it, and we had
a sizeable wealth management business. In fact, of banks five
five billion to two hundred billion, our revenues from our
wealth business is second to one other institution. So it's
(12:31):
we have a very formidable wealth business. So going into
the private banking arena, I would have to have that
DNA right, So if I didn't have that, it would
be it wouldn't be plausible for us to become sort
of that private bank. And so I would say the
first thing is to be true to yourself. The second
would be is to sort of assess what is the
best in class product that's there. And then so you
have to build the product offering so that you can
(12:52):
solve the needs for the clients that you're targeting. You
then need to train your staff around what's the common
vision around what it means to be a private bank.
We actually hired a firm that came in and taught
us a hospitality trending, So we basically took what was
going on at sort of Rich Carlton and stuff. We
adapted that into our own business. We trained every employee
(13:13):
around that, and it was really just an effort to
elevate it from good service, which you know, with good services.
But then there's there's something above good service. And you know,
when you think about Disney and you think about the
Ritz Carlton, and you think about other luxury brands, what
is it that just gives them that little edge? And
it all of the studies really comes down to it's
(13:34):
being personal. It's establishing a rapport. It's engaging people in
a personal level. It's establishing trust and being able to communicate,
you know, in a way. And that becomes an extremely durable,
you know kind of franchise. So that's it, and then
if I can do that on the front end again
circle them back to what I just said is that
the back the supports people, the thing, the people that
(13:57):
make it all work. When you flip the switch, the
light has to come on. So so the execution of
the back office has got to be streamlined. It's got
to have the same sort of fervor towards you know,
servicing that client and giving that special personal approach. There
was a book, you know, eleven Madison Park when it
is a great book called Uncommon Hospitality, and we had
you know, all the leadership in the bank read that
(14:18):
as well. And it's just It's incredible that a company
that was the third best restaurant in the world would
come back after getting that award and rip up their
entire menu and everything else to restart the business, and
that following year became the number one in the world.
That that kind of quest, that kind of drive for
perfection great is not a destination. It's something that every day.
(14:40):
It's you're asking the same question, how do I make
this better? How can I do it more efficiently? You know?
Do I have the right people that they're doing it?
Do they need help? Do I need to train them
and help them, et cetera succeed?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So it's a great standard to live by, and it's
awesome to see that you're giving the resources to your
team also to accomplish that.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, absolutely to me. You know. So most of the
larger businesses they put the shareholders at top, they put
the client, you know, the client's customers after that, and
then at the bottom of the chain of the employees.
And our business model is completely flipped the other way.
The first thing that we care about is each other,
and we make sure that our client tele or our
people that work here are good people. As I said that,
(15:20):
you know, we try working towards the common goal. We
share our toys in the sandbox, so we build a
culture of just collaboration in one team. From that, the
next thing is that we completely will laser focus on
executing on behalf of the client. Everything that we do
and brieve in the company is geared towards being able
to deliver a great experience of the client. And of course,
(15:41):
as a bank, we have to do that in a
safe and sound manner. And my expectations, I said, is
that if we get those two things right, the shareholders succeed.
So we're in a larger institution. As I said, the
people become interchangeable. They're just parts that go in and out.
And so I think that that's kind of a big focus.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Piggybacking off of that, I know something that you do
focus on as personal relationships in the community. How have
those been factors in the bank's long term strategicals.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
So the community is something that I'm very passionate about.
And I would say that we've been involved, my wife
and I for over thirty five years with what was
Worstown Soup Kitchen is now Nursha and Jay. But it's
about providing beyond food, they've gone into counseling and so
on and so forth. I think so many of us
forget the people who are not as good off or
(16:35):
as better off as all of us. And I just
think that, you know, at the end of the day,
any society, anywhere, you're only as good as the weakest
link in the chain. And so it's not just a
feel good thing. It's kind of like we're obligated as
humans that you know, that care is that we have
to reach down to the people at the bottom and
(16:55):
try to bring them up, and if we do that,
it makes it a better place for all of us.
There's a crisis in New York right now with the
cost of housing, and the election reflects that, regardless of
you know, all the rhetoric around you know, Democratic socialists
or you know whatever. To me, that's not as important
as you know, the voices in the vote that are
being saying that there's people in the city that are
(17:16):
actually working forty hours a week that are in homeless shelters.
I mean, you know, that's not that's not that should
be the world that we do operate. And so look,
I'm hopeful that all of that, you know, gets worked through.
But for us that the community part is something that
we all really embrace at the company.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
That's very important. Love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Looking ahead, what is your vision on how private banking
must evolve to meet the needs of the future generations.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So that's a that's a really good one. There's been
surveys taken that you would think with robo investing and
all this technology that the trillions that's going to be
inherited by the next generation would have said, listen, what
I want is to have I want to have just
all of my money at my hand so I can
day trade it. And in fact the answer is no.
Seventy percent won a money manager, somebody a human that
(18:04):
they can talk to and then and then ultimately to
be able to work with them. They also say that
they don't want to work with who their parents' money
person was. They want to get their own. That it
is very interesting. So it's it'll be interesting how it evolves.
I think for us. You know, again, the temptation under
AI of driving efficiencies applies to everything, every job, everywhere,
(18:29):
and I would say the investment management side and the
private banking side will not change the opportunity. I think
is that AI when it moves from the back office
and the larger institutions to the front office where you're
actually calling your banker, but you're really talking to a
to a computer and you're having a dialogue. Because it'll
be able to have that engage you. And by the way,
(18:50):
that employee is a lot cheaper than you know, a
human being because they work or they don't take breaks,
they don't ask for raises. They can work all day,
never take a nap. You know, they don't even have
to take drink coffee. That will make its way I
think into the market. The opportunity for feedback is to
keep all of that technology for us that gives us
insight efficiencies, the ability to compete in the back behind
(19:14):
the face of the client, and that ultimately for us
to stay the course in terms of just face to
face you know, human kind of interaction. So I suspect
the big opportunity for us as this AI and this
technology rolls out, more of it's going to get introduced
and it's not all going to be accepted by every client,
So there'll be people that are going to want that
(19:35):
personal interaction and want that personal advisor. So the niche
for us is to take advantages they scale up a
business that is intrinsically not scalable, we will take advantage
of that, which is currently what our business model is
right now, and that's what we've been doing.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I'm sure throughout your career and throughout the journey, there
may have been some challenges along the way. Are there
any significant challenges that stand out to you, and if so,
how did you handle them and what were some of
those lessons you learned from them?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
So I would say, look at the one that I
look back on, which was a once in a lifetime
was when we went into COVID and so on the
friday before we went remote the entire company, you know,
my IT guy came by and he said, listen, I've
got to install this software into your iPad because I
think you're going to need it. I go, what the
(20:23):
heck is it? It's Zoom? I go, what the hell
is zoom? All right, who on Earth doesn't know what
zoom is? So we scattered the company all out. Everyone's
locked up. Think about every business that we have, every
mortgage that we have, no one's making payments. Now you
don't have to be a banker to be that smart
to know that if every client you have stop making payments,
that would be like a real problem, right you know,
(20:45):
like that kind of like means you got a lot
of bad loans, right, you know. And so we actually,
you know, pivoted and rallied our team. We were working
three shifts around the clock, and we really leaned in
and we didn't view PPP the LEN program in terms
of dollars and how much money we're going to make.
We viewed it and how many jobs we were saving.
(21:06):
And you know, we would get on the horn and
we talk about we've saved you know, twenty seven thousand jobs,
you know, doing what we're doing, and that really you know,
we were on teams, we had we had to stand
up technology on a weekend because it was coming down
so fast. And so you know, I would say in
terms of a pill point, it really shows you the
number one. You know, in the ordinary course of a day,
(21:28):
you really don't understand how good people are, but you
put them into like an extraordinary circumstance where like you know,
who's going to move next, and what do we do?
We figured it out, and we did it in like
a very short period of time and we succeeded. I
was so proud the second round of it. On the
first day they throttled out so the big banks, they
wouldn't they everybody got the same amount of things. We
(21:49):
actually did one more application than Bank of America at peedback.
That's all that second that was just so cool for me.
So that was a big one. Is that you can
challenge tea people under stress, that you can rally them
to as common cause, and that you can actually get
stuff done that you would ordinarily think is unimaginable. The
impossible is the way I would do it.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I would say I always love asking this question for
everybody that sits down on the podcast. If anyone's tuning
in that wants to inspire to be a future leader,
a future CEO, what advice would you give them that
you wish you knew right from the start?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Listen? I actually I do. I think it's the point
that I did not know the difference between who a
leader was and a manager. You know, if you had
a big title and an office in the corner, I
just assumed that you were a leader. And what took
me a decade to figure out is that some of
those people that were just sitting in that office with
the big title were not really leaders. They were managers
(22:44):
and a manager someone who you know, get the paperwork
and you read the paperwork and you look at the numbers,
and you know you're under the number. You're over the
number where a leader will inspire you, listen, what can
we be Let's take these numbers and throw them to
the side. What is it that we can think out
of the box on right now that we could get
something done? And so I found that leadership also existed
(23:06):
not in offices, but it existed around the world. You
go into the get a cup of coffee, and you
sit down. There's leaders that are in that room, people
whose opinion they care about. So I think that, you know,
my advice for somebody aspiring to become a CEO, et cetera,
is to you know, I think you know, I go
after you all of your weaknesses. You don't need to
(23:26):
focus on you. If you're really smart right now, start moving.
But you're very socially awkward and you get your hand
in your phone all the time. Go figure out how
to network and build a network of friends, and that
you know that you networth that you're going to carry
that role that that that network all the way through.
And I'm not talking LinkedIn with two thousands of huture
close to friends. I'm talking about the ten people that
are really going to shape your life. So go establish
(23:48):
those relationships with purpose. If you met him today, put
in your calendar to call them in ninety days and
ninety days it'll seem random, but go ahead and you
start building some discipline around building that network. I actually
think when you think about what's going on right now
in the world with AI, and if I was coming
out of college and you look at all the junior
like an analyst job and so on and so forth,
those jobs are going to go away. And so at
(24:10):
the end of the day, if your entry level is
that I have to outthink this AI thing and I
have to do it more efficiently, you lose getting We're
getting twenty page documents analysis being done in thirteen minutes
that would take a human a week. So that job,
if you were, if that was where you historically got into,
that job doesn't exist. What you're going to need in
(24:32):
the world is the personal piece of it. AI is
going to outthink you. You've already lost that role So
my advice to you, if you want to be is
really to get Dale Carnegie. Go figure out how to
give speeches, impromptu speeches, and be able to talk, be
able to look people in an eye. Go out and
build a network of people in a personal way. Meet
them at it for dinner. Go into the city or
(24:54):
go out into the suburbs. Whoever you think is important
that can help you through your career, and coach you.
Amulate those people and invest in that. So invest in
human do the academic stuff because you're going to need that,
but a lot of the stuff that's in front of you,
you're competing against the machine now, and a machine is
going to beat you.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It's incredible advice. So what's next for Peeback Private Bank
and Trust? Any exciting developments or stuff on the horizon
we should know about.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
So over the last two years, we've added about thirty
percent to our headcount in the company, and we've extended
into you know, as I said, we were in New Jersey.
We've been working on this private banking thing for some time.
We stepped over the river, we burned the boats. We
weren't going back, and the center of gravity is shifting
for our company into Manhattan. I see us in the
near term trying to come up with a strategy on
(25:42):
how to do a branch light kind of a platform, meaning,
you know, a couple of branches in Long Island. So
I'm in New York City, We're in New Jersey, Westchester, Connecticut,
Fairfold County, so sort of surround you know, the entire
New York market. So I think that that will continue
to evolve. And we already have people on the ground,
but put some physical facilities and stuff I think would
(26:02):
be sort of a next step. The people that we've hired,
you know, we've gone, We've had really exceptional results to date.
We've essentially stood up a bank in New York in
a year and twelve months, and right now our pipelines
are very strong and it's just about execution. So I
think in the real notable thing is just I don't
(26:23):
think for us that growing for growth sach is what
we're after, or profits for profits sake. I think that
really as we've grown, we've really stressed the back office,
the middle office, and it's making sure that we have
the right technology, we have the right processes in place,
et cetera. And so for me, my focus is really
on the inside. If I again getting back, if we
give a great experience and we can do that consistently,
(26:45):
the business will take care of itself. So excess X file.
So look at I don't think we're trying to become
the household name, although we are within certain communities and verticals,
but we are, at its heart, were essentially a you know,
wealth and commercial lending institution. We've got a national leasing platform,
(27:05):
we've got a very robust professional services accountants and attorney group. Uh,
and we've got you know, a traditional community bank as well.
So we've we've got all of all of those pieces.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
We've covered a lot, right, But if there's one thing
you want the listeners that are tuning and to know
about the mission of the company, what would that be?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Our mission is really to you know, listen to our clients,
understand what their needs are, what what their legacy may
look like, and to be able to provide sound advice,
not product sales, for them to be able to think
that through. And should they wish for us to help
them execute on that strategy. Uh. The way in which
(27:47):
we'll deliver that is a is it a very personalized way,
A way that you'll actually know the individuals on the
other side. You'll meet decision makers, you'll meet the CEO
of the company. You'll feel important, you'll feel like you're
being cared for. And the people that we've brought in
of all from big institutions, every single one of them.
(28:07):
The product we built is what you'd find in any
big institution. So we have all the intellectual capability of
all the technology, but what we have, which I think
is the big differentiator, is a large dose of human
in terms of what we do and how we touch
our clients. And as crazy it may sound in terms
of that being the core door strategy, I still firmly
(28:28):
believe that that there's a need for that in the market.
And if I'm right, this AI and everything else that's
being driven into the world that's going to make it
even more impersonal that if we double down on human
that we will have a very viable business.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
If someone's tuning in that wants to learn more about
Pepack Private, what should they do?
Speaker 3 (28:47):
You should call Doug Kennedy at two oh one two
seven four six four sixty seven. That's my cell phone number.
I return every call before I go to better all
acknowledge it.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I don't think any guests has ever given out their
cell phone numbers, so.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
I love that I have no problem. I told you
this is personal banking. I was a teller.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I love that. Doug, thank you so much for coming
in today.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Well, thanks for having me and I really enjoyed it. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
We love learning about your background, more about p pack
and all the advice and great stories you provided, So
thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
It's a wonderful, wonderful ride. You got to enjoy it
while you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Congrats and all the success, and we're excited to see
what's next.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Thanks Steven, best to you as well.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Thank you and thank you all for tuning into this
WEC edition of CEOs you should know tune in next
week
Hi, everyone, This is Steve Delson and welcome to this
week's edition of CEU. As you should know, I am
thrilled to be joined by Doug Kennedy, the president and
CEO of p Pack Private Bank and Trust.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Doug, thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Hey, thanks for having me Steve. It's great to be
with you.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We're excited to jump in and to kick it off.
So why don't we get things started. I know you
began your career as a teller, and now you lead
a high performing, performing financial institute. What key lessons did
you learn early on that you continue to influence your
leadership today.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
So if I think back on my life, and you know,
at fifteen, my father lied and said I was sixteen,
got me a job, and so I was always working
my entire life a paper route when I was ten
years old, and so I think, you know what, really
the foundation is just hustle and hard work is really
what I learned. And you know, I was worried. I
was a teller, which I met my wife, as you said,
(00:49):
we were both working our way through college, you know,
as a commuter student, you know, during the day, et cetera.
And again it was my responsibility that I had to
pay at least half my college tuition. So that's that's
kind of what you know, I would say the baseline
was is that you really have to work hard for
everything that you get.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, you have that hard work ethic right from the
very sum and obviously it's continued on all throughout the journey.
So I know that you've been in the industry for
over forty years, and I'm sure there may be some
moments or milestones that really stand out as a turning
part for your career.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
What are some of those?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Okay, So I have some great stories about my career
that I'll share with you. You know, I started out going
into a branch and if any of you have been
into a bank branch, there's three clocks that are there,
and the way it works is that all three clocks
get set and the first one that turns that gets
to like an alarm to the time it will allow
the vault to get open. And usually you have two
(01:41):
people do it just to make sure you don't screw
it up. Well, me, just coming out of college and
being really smart, I actually set the three clocks on
a holiday weekend and I blew it on the math
and on Tuesday morning when we came in, the vault
was still locked. We couldn't open it up till Wednesday.
I put an extra day in there.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
So needless to say that, the next move for me
was to move out of retail banking and went into
commercial banking. And my first day on the job, I
was at Yankee Stadium for a for a day game,
and my job was to go buy hot dogs and
beer for the clients that we were entertaining. And I came back,
I was married to my wife, and I said, I
have found my lot in life. Can you believe it?
(02:21):
It was a beautiful sunny days. I'm watching the New
York Yankees. I'm drinking beer and eating hot dogs, and
the bank is paying for it. So that's how I
became a commercial banker.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Love that life was good, very good.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, very very good.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So I know that you've been credited with transforming Peeback
Private into finance into really a financial service powerhouse.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
What's it?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Specific innovations or cultural shifts were the most critical to
that transformation.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So in a short the short word is people. It's
all about people and in culture. So if you, no
matter what industry you're in, including the radio business, theve
is culture means everything and key, and we work at
that very very hard in the company. You know, I
think that as I've gone through my career, you know,
I started out before interstate banking. It then became regional banking,
(03:09):
and then ultimately you know, national banking, and so through
no fault of my own banks that I was working
where got acquired. I went to a larger institution, to
a larger institution. I was at Fleet Bank, Bank of America,
I was at Northwark, then it became Capital One, and
through all of that you could just see this this
change that you know, the individual banker who was really
(03:32):
the relationship and the partner with the client, going back
to when the banks were smaller. What sort of changed
over time is that the brand became the company and
the people became incidental to it. And you know, that
sort of stuck with me. And you know, one of
the reasons why I sort of knocked on the door
at Pepac is that I felt there was a tremendous
(03:52):
opportunity of standing that bank up and filling that need
of personalized relationship banking that unfortunately has just disappeared through
consolidation and you know, the world just being more reliant
on technology and other avenues. And so it's sort of
like there's a lot of discussion earners about scale, like
the bigger you are, the more efficient you are, therefore
(04:13):
it's the most profitable. I would say that our business
model rejects that. I think what we do is we
decide where weekend provide value, where we can get paid
satisfactory for it, and that ultimately, you know, there's money
that we can provide to our shareholders.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And great perspective.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Speaking of culture and people, I know that your bank
consistently has been named the best place to work. What
leadership principles do you use to prioritize that really strong
internal culture that you spoke about.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So it's right, we're very proud of that. You know.
The American Banker actually, out of the sixty five hundred
banks in the country, they picked ninety and then they
stack rank it and the stack ranking to qualify over
half the employees have to go through a test and
it takes about twenty or five minutes, and a lot
of it is all about communication. I say, that's where
(05:00):
would come in and that then translates into engagement. So
do you know what the vision of the strategy the
company is? Do you believe that? Do you believe in
management and what they're where they're taking you? Do you
think that your voice is heard inside the company? You know,
do you understand how you're contributing to an overall success
of the company, et cetera. And you know, those those
(05:22):
kinds of questions, including ones like would you refer a
friend or have a family member come work at the bank?
And you know, people that are in the affirmative, it
means I'm proud of the place that I'm at and
so on and so forth. And then the other thing
that I sort of learned having been at bigger organizations
is that people that are folks that you would not
want to work with, you know what I would call
jerks or I describe it in other ways. But at
(05:45):
the end of the day, we sort of made a
conscious decisions as we've been building this out, is that
we really didn't want to spend any time with them,
regardless of how much business they could do or how
connected they were. If their personality wasn't and didn't fit
into who we were, then we yeally didn't want. And
I think those two factors of having people bound by
common principles and values that are genuinely good people, that
(06:09):
are you know, smart, that work collaboratively with each other,
that is the formula to be able to stand up
and compete and win against the larger institutions.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I love that philosophy. I wish every company had that.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know, it's so funny to me, having been at
all these companies, is that it seems like it's very,
very easy. And you know where I land in the
last year is that there's just certain human behavior. So
for example, in our journey, you could build a private bank.
I can go out and survey and figure out exactly
what product I need. I can build those products. I
can then hire a salesforce, a team that actually understands them,
(06:47):
you know, the technical aspects of what it is that
we do to be able to go out and sell that.
But at the end of the day, if we get
into client and we actually sell that vision the idea
of what they're going to experience, but then turn back
into the company where the middle office and the back
office don't have the values that the front office has
in terms of not saying no to the client right
(07:07):
out of the gate. To be you know, working with
a level of enthusiasm, you know, just really providing hospitality
level service both internal and external clients, the whole thing
breaks down. So trying to create something that's intimate, that
feels really personal and doing that in a very scaled
(07:28):
way is extremely hard. And if you built that company
through hundreds of acquisitions and you've had to integrate cultures
over time, it doesn't really completely gel together.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Sure, that makes sense, very smart way to look at
it in Congrats, that's an awesome accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You'd be proud of.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh, thanks very much, Steve.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Of course, I know outside of the professional world you
also have some passions outside of work, right we were
just talking about golfing before we jumped on, but also
flying or sailing. How have those passions helped influence your
leadership style or maybe you're justsion making behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
So the backstory on all of that is that twenty
years ago, my biggest fear in life, and everyone has one,
mine was flying. I was actually in Newark on a
plane and became so anxious I walked off the plane.
Oh my gosh, I wouldn't take the flight when I
was in vacation. I go on vacation, I could not
(08:23):
get on the little puddle jumper plane. In other words,
I was fully, like totally a frightened flight. So what
I decided to do was to research an airport up
in Moorestown in New Jersey, Northern Jersey. And I showed
up and I said, my biggest fear in life is
I want to conquer it. Can you teach me how
to fly a plane? And I handed him a visa
(08:44):
card and I said, young man, if you have enough
money on this visa card, you will be a pilot.
So over a course of two years of I was
able to get my pilot's license, and then I went
on to get my instrument writing, which means that you
can drive and you can fly and zero visibility becoming
a So I would say, look at the first lesson
(09:05):
in life is don't run away from your fears. If
you think that you have like a personal limitation, I
don't know that. I've never done that. I can't do that, Okay,
the moment your head says that, have the bravery to
push yourself into a non comfort zone and figure it out.
And when you do It's kind of like going to
(09:26):
the gym that you've lifted fifty pounds. Then the next
time you go, you're going sixty pounds, and seventy pounds
and eighty pounds. You will be surprised how far you
can go.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Talk about if you push yourself first.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yep. The boating is very analogous to it. I've been
on boats my whole life, and during COVID, it couldn't
go anywhere, it couldn't go in a vacation. So I actually
went online and I had enough I could document enough
time at sea to get my captain's license. So I
have my captain's license my pilot's license. And those are
the two passions. And I think what I would learn
and share with you is that in both instances, and
(09:59):
this is where he applied to the business, you always
want to be out in front of the plane, out
in front of the business. So what what does that mean?
It means that you know, for example, your career in radio.
I mean we were talking about my father was in radio,
and we were talking about you know, iHeart and how
the how many markets you serve and and the studio
tour that we just got et cetera. The world has changed,
(10:20):
you know, in such a dramatic way, and so I
think that being out in front of where the industry
is going is what you've always got to be looking
over the arc of the of the of the of
the the earth. For example, in a plane, you're doing
you're planning before you even get into it, days ahead
to see what the weather is going to be. When
you get in the plane, you're constantly looking if the
(10:41):
if the engine had to go out right now, where
am I going to put it down? So you're always
out in front of the plane. When before you come
into land, you check the wind, what direction is going
to come, how how fast is it blowing, what's the
what's the how is the runway, positions of the the wind,
So that when you fly in, you're not reacting to something,
you're already out in front of what could happen.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I absolutely love that.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
The same on a boat. And the boat you know,
my father taught me is that every you know, this
is before GPS and stuff, but every hour we'd have
a chart and I'd have to mark us where we were,
and when I marked it, it would be if something
happened in the next thirty minutes, what would I do,
you know, to what port would I go into or
what's my exit? And so I would say in business,
(11:26):
it's not you know, sort of sitting the job that
I'm in as CEO and sort of just deal with
what's in the moment. It's really trying to assess your environment,
what's going on in the industry. It's looking at what
your strengths and weaknesses are, and then it's trying to
position the company, you know, three to five years forward
as to where it's been and that's been the journey
that we've been on.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I love that. That's great advice. I love both of
those philosophies. Everyone could take a lesson from those. So
let's talk a little bit more about Peeback Private. We
touched on this earlier, but I know you really position
Peeback Private as that compelling alternative to larn banks. How
would you define and execute that vision different than any
other bank out there?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
The short answer is that the key behaviors that we
have to have because a big bank can't scale it.
So the first part, you know, if you wanted to
be a private bank, first of all, you have to
have sort of the DNA in it, and we had
a sizeable wealth management business. In fact, of banks five
five billion to two hundred billion, our revenues from our
wealth business is second to one other institution. So it's
(12:31):
we have a very formidable wealth business. So going into
the private banking arena, I would have to have that
DNA right, So if I didn't have that, it would
be it wouldn't be plausible for us to become sort
of that private bank. And so I would say the
first thing is to be true to yourself. The second
would be is to sort of assess what is the
best in class product that's there. And then so you
have to build the product offering so that you can
(12:52):
solve the needs for the clients that you're targeting. You
then need to train your staff around what's the common
vision around what it means to be a private bank.
We actually hired a firm that came in and taught
us a hospitality trending, So we basically took what was
going on at sort of Rich Carlton and stuff. We
adapted that into our own business. We trained every employee
(13:13):
around that, and it was really just an effort to
elevate it from good service, which you know, with good services.
But then there's there's something above good service. And you know,
when you think about Disney and you think about the
Ritz Carlton, and you think about other luxury brands, what
is it that just gives them that little edge? And
it all of the studies really comes down to it's
(13:34):
being personal. It's establishing a rapport. It's engaging people in
a personal level. It's establishing trust and being able to communicate,
you know, in a way. And that becomes an extremely durable,
you know kind of franchise. So that's it, and then
if I can do that on the front end again
circle them back to what I just said is that
the back the supports people, the thing, the people that
(13:57):
make it all work. When you flip the switch, the
light has to come on. So so the execution of
the back office has got to be streamlined. It's got
to have the same sort of fervor towards you know,
servicing that client and giving that special personal approach. There
was a book, you know, eleven Madison Park when it
is a great book called Uncommon Hospitality, and we had
you know, all the leadership in the bank read that
(14:18):
as well. And it's just It's incredible that a company
that was the third best restaurant in the world would
come back after getting that award and rip up their
entire menu and everything else to restart the business, and
that following year became the number one in the world.
That that kind of quest, that kind of drive for
perfection great is not a destination. It's something that every day.
(14:40):
It's you're asking the same question, how do I make
this better? How can I do it more efficiently? You know?
Do I have the right people that they're doing it?
Do they need help? Do I need to train them
and help them, et cetera succeed?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So it's a great standard to live by, and it's
awesome to see that you're giving the resources to your
team also to accomplish that.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, absolutely to me. You know. So most of the
larger businesses they put the shareholders at top, they put
the client, you know, the client's customers after that, and
then at the bottom of the chain of the employees.
And our business model is completely flipped the other way.
The first thing that we care about is each other,
and we make sure that our client tele or our
people that work here are good people. As I said that,
(15:20):
you know, we try working towards the common goal. We
share our toys in the sandbox, so we build a
culture of just collaboration in one team. From that, the
next thing is that we completely will laser focus on
executing on behalf of the client. Everything that we do
and brieve in the company is geared towards being able
to deliver a great experience of the client. And of course,
(15:41):
as a bank, we have to do that in a
safe and sound manner. And my expectations, I said, is
that if we get those two things right, the shareholders succeed.
So we're in a larger institution. As I said, the
people become interchangeable. They're just parts that go in and out.
And so I think that that's kind of a big focus.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Piggybacking off of that, I know something that you do
focus on as personal relationships in the community. How have
those been factors in the bank's long term strategicals.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
So the community is something that I'm very passionate about.
And I would say that we've been involved, my wife
and I for over thirty five years with what was
Worstown Soup Kitchen is now Nursha and Jay. But it's
about providing beyond food, they've gone into counseling and so
on and so forth. I think so many of us
forget the people who are not as good off or
(16:35):
as better off as all of us. And I just
think that, you know, at the end of the day,
any society, anywhere, you're only as good as the weakest
link in the chain. And so it's not just a
feel good thing. It's kind of like we're obligated as
humans that you know, that care is that we have
to reach down to the people at the bottom and
(16:55):
try to bring them up, and if we do that,
it makes it a better place for all of us.
There's a crisis in New York right now with the
cost of housing, and the election reflects that, regardless of
you know, all the rhetoric around you know, Democratic socialists
or you know whatever. To me, that's not as important
as you know, the voices in the vote that are
being saying that there's people in the city that are
(17:16):
actually working forty hours a week that are in homeless shelters.
I mean, you know, that's not that's not that should
be the world that we do operate. And so look,
I'm hopeful that all of that, you know, gets worked through.
But for us that the community part is something that
we all really embrace at the company.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
That's very important. Love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Looking ahead, what is your vision on how private banking
must evolve to meet the needs of the future generations.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So that's a that's a really good one. There's been
surveys taken that you would think with robo investing and
all this technology that the trillions that's going to be
inherited by the next generation would have said, listen, what
I want is to have I want to have just
all of my money at my hand so I can
day trade it. And in fact the answer is no.
Seventy percent won a money manager, somebody a human that
(18:04):
they can talk to and then and then ultimately to
be able to work with them. They also say that
they don't want to work with who their parents' money
person was. They want to get their own. That it
is very interesting. So it's it'll be interesting how it evolves.
I think for us. You know, again, the temptation under
AI of driving efficiencies applies to everything, every job, everywhere,
(18:29):
and I would say the investment management side and the
private banking side will not change the opportunity. I think
is that AI when it moves from the back office
and the larger institutions to the front office where you're
actually calling your banker, but you're really talking to a
to a computer and you're having a dialogue. Because it'll
be able to have that engage you. And by the way,
(18:50):
that employee is a lot cheaper than you know, a
human being because they work or they don't take breaks,
they don't ask for raises. They can work all day,
never take a nap. You know, they don't even have
to take drink coffee. That will make its way I
think into the market. The opportunity for feedback is to
keep all of that technology for us that gives us
insight efficiencies, the ability to compete in the back behind
(19:14):
the face of the client, and that ultimately for us
to stay the course in terms of just face to
face you know, human kind of interaction. So I suspect
the big opportunity for us as this AI and this
technology rolls out, more of it's going to get introduced
and it's not all going to be accepted by every client,
So there'll be people that are going to want that
(19:35):
personal interaction and want that personal advisor. So the niche
for us is to take advantages they scale up a
business that is intrinsically not scalable, we will take advantage
of that, which is currently what our business model is
right now, and that's what we've been doing.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I'm sure throughout your career and throughout the journey, there
may have been some challenges along the way. Are there
any significant challenges that stand out to you, and if so,
how did you handle them and what were some of
those lessons you learned from them?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
So I would say, look at the one that I
look back on, which was a once in a lifetime
was when we went into COVID and so on the
friday before we went remote the entire company, you know,
my IT guy came by and he said, listen, I've
got to install this software into your iPad because I
think you're going to need it. I go, what the
(20:23):
heck is it? It's Zoom? I go, what the hell
is zoom? All right, who on Earth doesn't know what
zoom is? So we scattered the company all out. Everyone's
locked up. Think about every business that we have, every
mortgage that we have, no one's making payments. Now you
don't have to be a banker to be that smart
to know that if every client you have stop making payments,
that would be like a real problem, right you know,
(20:45):
like that kind of like means you got a lot
of bad loans, right, you know. And so we actually,
you know, pivoted and rallied our team. We were working
three shifts around the clock, and we really leaned in
and we didn't view PPP the LEN program in terms
of dollars and how much money we're going to make.
We viewed it and how many jobs we were saving.
(21:06):
And you know, we would get on the horn and
we talk about we've saved you know, twenty seven thousand jobs,
you know, doing what we're doing, and that really you know,
we were on teams, we had we had to stand
up technology on a weekend because it was coming down
so fast. And so you know, I would say in
terms of a pill point, it really shows you the
number one. You know, in the ordinary course of a day,
(21:28):
you really don't understand how good people are, but you
put them into like an extraordinary circumstance where like you know,
who's going to move next, and what do we do?
We figured it out, and we did it in like
a very short period of time and we succeeded. I
was so proud the second round of it. On the
first day they throttled out so the big banks, they
wouldn't they everybody got the same amount of things. We
(21:49):
actually did one more application than Bank of America at peedback.
That's all that second that was just so cool for me.
So that was a big one. Is that you can
challenge tea people under stress, that you can rally them
to as common cause, and that you can actually get
stuff done that you would ordinarily think is unimaginable. The
impossible is the way I would do it.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I would say I always love asking this question for
everybody that sits down on the podcast. If anyone's tuning
in that wants to inspire to be a future leader,
a future CEO, what advice would you give them that
you wish you knew right from the start?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Listen? I actually I do. I think it's the point
that I did not know the difference between who a
leader was and a manager. You know, if you had
a big title and an office in the corner, I
just assumed that you were a leader. And what took
me a decade to figure out is that some of
those people that were just sitting in that office with
the big title were not really leaders. They were managers
(22:44):
and a manager someone who you know, get the paperwork
and you read the paperwork and you look at the numbers,
and you know you're under the number. You're over the
number where a leader will inspire you, listen, what can
we be Let's take these numbers and throw them to
the side. What is it that we can think out
of the box on right now that we could get
something done? And so I found that leadership also existed
(23:06):
not in offices, but it existed around the world. You
go into the get a cup of coffee, and you
sit down. There's leaders that are in that room, people
whose opinion they care about. So I think that, you know,
my advice for somebody aspiring to become a CEO, et cetera,
is to you know, I think you know, I go
after you all of your weaknesses. You don't need to
(23:26):
focus on you. If you're really smart right now, start moving.
But you're very socially awkward and you get your hand
in your phone all the time. Go figure out how
to network and build a network of friends, and that
you know that you networth that you're going to carry
that role that that that network all the way through.
And I'm not talking LinkedIn with two thousands of huture
close to friends. I'm talking about the ten people that
are really going to shape your life. So go establish
(23:48):
those relationships with purpose. If you met him today, put
in your calendar to call them in ninety days and
ninety days it'll seem random, but go ahead and you
start building some discipline around building that network. I actually
think when you think about what's going on right now
in the world with AI, and if I was coming
out of college and you look at all the junior
like an analyst job and so on and so forth,
those jobs are going to go away. And so at
(24:10):
the end of the day, if your entry level is
that I have to outthink this AI thing and I
have to do it more efficiently, you lose getting We're
getting twenty page documents analysis being done in thirteen minutes
that would take a human a week. So that job,
if you were, if that was where you historically got into,
that job doesn't exist. What you're going to need in
(24:32):
the world is the personal piece of it. AI is
going to outthink you. You've already lost that role So
my advice to you, if you want to be is
really to get Dale Carnegie. Go figure out how to
give speeches, impromptu speeches, and be able to talk, be
able to look people in an eye. Go out and
build a network of people in a personal way. Meet
them at it for dinner. Go into the city or
(24:54):
go out into the suburbs. Whoever you think is important
that can help you through your career, and coach you.
Amulate those people and invest in that. So invest in
human do the academic stuff because you're going to need that,
but a lot of the stuff that's in front of you,
you're competing against the machine now, and a machine is
going to beat you.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It's incredible advice. So what's next for Peeback Private Bank
and Trust? Any exciting developments or stuff on the horizon
we should know about.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
So over the last two years, we've added about thirty
percent to our headcount in the company, and we've extended
into you know, as I said, we were in New Jersey.
We've been working on this private banking thing for some time.
We stepped over the river, we burned the boats. We
weren't going back, and the center of gravity is shifting
for our company into Manhattan. I see us in the
near term trying to come up with a strategy on
(25:42):
how to do a branch light kind of a platform, meaning,
you know, a couple of branches in Long Island. So
I'm in New York City, We're in New Jersey, Westchester, Connecticut,
Fairfold County, so sort of surround you know, the entire
New York market. So I think that that will continue
to evolve. And we already have people on the ground,
but put some physical facilities and stuff I think would
(26:02):
be sort of a next step. The people that we've hired,
you know, we've gone, We've had really exceptional results to date.
We've essentially stood up a bank in New York in
a year and twelve months, and right now our pipelines
are very strong and it's just about execution. So I
think in the real notable thing is just I don't
(26:23):
think for us that growing for growth sach is what
we're after, or profits for profits sake. I think that
really as we've grown, we've really stressed the back office,
the middle office, and it's making sure that we have
the right technology, we have the right processes in place,
et cetera. And so for me, my focus is really
on the inside. If I again getting back, if we
give a great experience and we can do that consistently,
(26:45):
the business will take care of itself. So excess X file.
So look at I don't think we're trying to become
the household name, although we are within certain communities and verticals,
but we are, at its heart, were essentially a you know,
wealth and commercial lending institution. We've got a national leasing platform,
(27:05):
we've got a very robust professional services accountants and attorney group. Uh,
and we've got you know, a traditional community bank as well.
So we've we've got all of all of those pieces.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
We've covered a lot, right, But if there's one thing
you want the listeners that are tuning and to know
about the mission of the company, what would that be?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Our mission is really to you know, listen to our clients,
understand what their needs are, what what their legacy may
look like, and to be able to provide sound advice,
not product sales, for them to be able to think
that through. And should they wish for us to help
them execute on that strategy. Uh. The way in which
(27:47):
we'll deliver that is a is it a very personalized way,
A way that you'll actually know the individuals on the
other side. You'll meet decision makers, you'll meet the CEO
of the company. You'll feel important, you'll feel like you're
being cared for. And the people that we've brought in
of all from big institutions, every single one of them.
(28:07):
The product we built is what you'd find in any
big institution. So we have all the intellectual capability of
all the technology, but what we have, which I think
is the big differentiator, is a large dose of human
in terms of what we do and how we touch
our clients. And as crazy it may sound in terms
of that being the core door strategy, I still firmly
(28:28):
believe that that there's a need for that in the market.
And if I'm right, this AI and everything else that's
being driven into the world that's going to make it
even more impersonal that if we double down on human
that we will have a very viable business.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
If someone's tuning in that wants to learn more about
Pepack Private, what should they do?
Speaker 3 (28:47):
You should call Doug Kennedy at two oh one two
seven four six four sixty seven. That's my cell phone number.
I return every call before I go to better all
acknowledge it.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I don't think any guests has ever given out their
cell phone numbers, so.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
I love that I have no problem. I told you
this is personal banking. I was a teller.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I love that. Doug, thank you so much for coming
in today.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Well, thanks for having me and I really enjoyed it. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
We love learning about your background, more about p pack
and all the advice and great stories you provided, So
thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
It's a wonderful, wonderful ride. You got to enjoy it
while you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Congrats and all the success, and we're excited to see
what's next.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Thanks Steven, best to you as well.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Thank you and thank you all for tuning into this
WEC edition of CEOs you should know tune in next
week
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