The Sheshunoff Senior Lending Officer Affiliation Program has released the Spring 2025 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 Affiliation membership
Spring 2025 Meetings
- March 31 – April 1: Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, Monterey, CA
- May 5 – 6: La Playa Beach & Golf Resort, Naples, FL
Sessions will include:
- High Performance Idea Exchange I (Julia Hernandez, The CorePoint) – The High Performance Idea Exchange provides an open forum for senior lending and senior credit officers to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing community banks today. Facilitated by an industry expert, the session allows attendees to actively contribute and determine the topics of discussion. This unique format gives participants the chance to shape the session dialogue and fosters the free exchange of information among peers. Ideas shared typically focus on hot topics in the industry, including the various loan strategies, risk management tactics, services and products that have proven successful for today’s community banks
- High Performance Idea Exchange II (John Hurlock) – Where are the opportunities? Uncertainty is not always a friend to the community banker. And we continue to be in a state of uncertainty. For example, while deposit/funding costs are expected to decrease, the growth of deposits is expected to be sluggish. And lending opportunities are expected to be slow to moderate. Regulations are expected to be reduced. Will the FDIC be eliminated? What about AI? These are many of the same issues we have faced throughout time; Uncertainty provides a heightened need to understand how to successfully operate and grow. We will tackle all of these items in the second part of the High Performance Idea Exchange.
- 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? Ed will tackle these issues and much more in our 2025 spring sessions.
- Evaluating Practices to Maximize Talent (Julia Johnson and Barbara Low, Wipfli) – In today’s challenging labor market, all employers are having difficulty attracting and retaining talent. Have you considered evaluating the policies and practices that may contribute to a low candidate pool? When’s the last time you reviewed elements of the hiring process to determine where changes need to be made in order to meet the needs of today’s workforce and provide an increased number of candidates?
To sign up for the 2025 Senior Lending 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 Executive Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officers, and Technology and Operations Officers. More information about all of those programs can be found here.
