Alice P. Frazier: Ensuring the future of community banking

I am a community banker through and through, and very proud to be, but it was not a planned career path. In fact, I came into community banking through a fortuitous experience: I was looking to evolve my skills as an auditor while balancing career and family when a role with a community bank client of mine was presented to me. I decided to take the leap, and it was the best career decision I have ever made. 

However, if not for that happy turn of events, I might never have found my calling in community banking. That’s why I’m so passionate about engaging the next generation of bankers and why ICBA has made succession planning a strategic priority. It’s about opening young professionals’ eyes to the opportunities with the unique world we orbit and building the bankers of tomorrow for the long-term viability of the community banking industry.

How to Engage the Next Generation of Community Bankers

We must engage aspiring leaders in ways that speak to them, and ICBA offers avenues to do just that. For instance, if they are passionate about ensuring a fair and equitable playing field, advocacy is a perfect fit, and we want them to join us for Capital Summit to share the community banking story with legislators. 

If they are focused on strengthening technology, having them attend ThinkTECH programming—whether it be the Accelerator, Innovation Workshop or Solutions Forums—will help them uncover ways community banks can apply technology to meet customer and community needs. If they want to expand their horizons and learn about new areas within the bank, they can attend courses or sign up for certification programs to uncover specifics of unique roles within banking. Or perhaps all of these options speak to them, so they could engage more deeply with ICBA, linking up with other bankers in ICBA Community, as a volunteer, at events and more.

Let’s commit to this: to identify, mentor and educate the next generation. Whatever road that takes us down—advocacy and working for change, innovation and leveraging the bank technologies possible, or education to build professional skills—our job is to ensure that the next generation of bankers recognize the value and opportunity that lies within this role. There’s no greater career than community banking, and we need to ensure we’re delivering that message, with both words and actions, to those who will be the future of our banks.