The Sheshunoff Chief Executive Officer Affiliation Program has released the Spring 2025 Chief Executive Officer Affiliation meeting topics and speakers and we hope you will join us.
Join your peers at the industry’s longest-running bank performance improvement program and know that your budget dollars and time away from the bank are spent wisely. Members of the Affiliation Program gain valuable insights and ideas to dramatically enhance bank performance. As a participant in the Affiliation Program, you’ll exchange ideas and speak candidly with your peers. Industry experts will give you hands-on solutions to enhance profitability, operate more efficiently and outperform your competition.
Reasons to Join Us in 2025:
- Network with other top community bank executives from across the country
- Gather ideas that will help you drive excellent performance and value throughout your organization
- Learn best practices and innovations from some of the banking industry’s finest intellectual leaders
- Bankers will also receive several bank specific reports as part of their Chief Executive Officer Affiliation membership
Spring 2025 Meetings
- March 10 – 12: Stein Eriksen Lodge, Park City, UT
- March 24 – 26: The Phoenician, Scottsdale, AZ
- April 14 – 16: The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island, Kiawah Island, SC
Sessions will include:
- High Performance Idea Exchange (Neil Stanley, The CorePoint) – The High Performance Idea Exchange provides Chief Executive Officers with a unique opportunity to discover best practices and to learn from the bankers who are implementing these ideas. Attendees will share their innovative thoughts and ideas in a roundtable format. In addition, we will utilize pre-meeting attendee survey results to focus on the topics of greatest interest to all. This session will encourage the free exchange of ideas among bankers, explore methods to improve your bank’s overall performance and productivity, and evaluate the challenges banks are facing and how to address those challenges.
- Boosting NII and NIM in 2025: A Smarter Approach (Gabe Krajicek and Chris Cohen, Kasasa) – Join us for an interactive workshop where we tackle two of the most pressing challenges facing financial institutions in 2025: growing non-interest income (NII) and expanding net interest margin (NIM) — without the usual trade-offs. Increasing NII can be as simple as adding fees to accounts, but doing so without eroding customer satisfaction requires genuine value creation and thoughtful user experience design. You’ll also have the opportunity to hear directly from your peers about what’s working—and what’s not—in today’s rapidly evolving financial landscape. Don’t miss this chance to gain actionable insights and refine your approach to sustainable, profitable growth.
- Unlocking the Secrets of High Performing Community Banks (Mikelle Brady and Mike Holt, Profit Resources) – Discover the essential qualities that define high-performing community banks and the strategic approaches that drive their success. In this session, PRI will unveil the attributes of consistently top-performing banks, from visionary leadership to execution on the most important details. You will gain insights into how to align your organization’s strategic objectives with performance goals and ensuring sustainable growth and excellence. We’ll address everything from customer journeys to system selection and a focus on non-interest income to non-interest expense.
- Industry and Bank Pricing Trends (John Adams- Sheshunoff Investment Banking) – The banking industry confronts an uncertain year with regards to interest rates and possible regulatory changes post-election. Net interest margin expansion will be paramount as banks work to decrease their deposit costs. A long-awaited rebound in bank stocks in late 2024 lost steam in early 2025 but could still lead to improved bank M&A prices, as well as increased deal volume, reversing the trends seen since 2023 which began with a few high-profile bank failures in March of that year. To better inform banks as they plan strategically for the future, we will study the current trends in bank performance and valuation levels for bank stocks and M&A transactions after a period of historically weak M&A volume and pricing in 2023 and 2024.
- The Ever Changing World of Junk Fees – NSFs, Overdrafts and More (Tracy Bush and Kathy Enbom, Wipfli) – As Banks struggle to respond to the regulators growing list of junk fees, this session will assist in navigating this new world. From overdraft fees, non-sufficient funds fees to late fees, this session will discuss the types of fees the CFPB has considered as junk fees, why certain charges are considered junk fees, and ways to review your fee schedule for other fees that may put you at risk. This session will cover where we are as well as where we’re headed in this new world of junk fees.
- Economic Update (Dr. Ed Seifried) – The US economy grew by 1.9% and 2.5% in 2022 and 2023 respectively. The growth continued in 2024 with the most recent third quarter GDP growth rate of 2.8%. The Fed seems to be winning the war against inflation and has already begun to lower its policy rate. However, with a new administration in Washington DC, the strong likelihood of much higher energy production, and the reduction of growth-suffocating government regulation, the economy is poised for much higher growth. But could this growth reignite inflation? Dr. Ed will tackle these issues and much more in our 2025 spring sessions.
To sign up for the 2025 Chief Executive Officer Affiliation Program, the renewal form can be found here.
We limit the size of each group so we encourage you to make your plans early as others are doing. To register or to find out more about our 2025 program, contact Karen Peterman at kpeterman@smslp.com or 512-703-1558.
We also offer Affiliation programs for Chief Financial Officers, Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officers, Technology and Operations Officers, and Senior Loan Officers. More information about all of those programs can be found here.
