Photo courtesy of River Run Bancorp
Sujata Yadav
President, River Run Bancorp
Industry experience: 24 years
Age: 48
After a career at Citi Bank and Eastern Bank, Sujata Yadav in the new president of River Run Bancorp – and soon its CEO. She became River Run’s president earlier this month, and will replace current CEO Lloyd L. Hamm Jr. on July 1 next year. Hamm will then transition to an executive chairman role for a two-year period, working alongside Yadav and the River Run board.
At River Run, she’s hoping to bring what she calls an “almost a 360-degree view” of banking acquired through a varied career to the mutual holding company’s three constituent banks: Newburyport Bank, Pentucket Bank and Rollstone Bank & Trust. Yadav said she is committed to keeping the institutions mutual despite a recent move by peer mutual holding company Hometown Financial Group to consolidate its member banks into one and go public.
Q: What attracted you to join River Run?
A: Honestly, what drew me was the model. River Run has this unique model that lets three community banks – they keep their name, their brand identity, their boards, their local decision-making and it gives them the scale to invest in things that none of them alone could afford to. That’s a hard balance to strike, but I really do think it’s the future of mutual banking up here in New England. I’ve spent the last 10 years with Eastern Bank and the chance to lead an organization that’s still a mutual, still deeply local, was one I couldn’t pass up.
The other thing I’d say is I’m also very lucky to have Lloyd alongside me. He’s built this model, and having him and being able to tag team with him for the foreseeable future, and then also having him stay on as executive chairman means a lot of continuity for our customers and for our team. I couldn’t be more thrilled.
Q: Why do you say this model is the future of mutual banking here?
A: It’s that ability to keep your local identity [and] being able to deliver exactly what community banks are known for: Always winning on relationships and giving that sort of personalized service to our clients, while being able to leverage a sort of universal, standardized, shared platforms infrastructure. I think it’s the best of both worlds. Honestly, I think that’s what’s going to keep us competitive, allow us to deliver products and services on a scale that any large bank can. So, my job is to make sure that the tools that are behind those relationships, in terms of that shared platform infrastructure, so it is as good as what any other bank can offer.
Q: With TruNorth Bank converting to a publicly traded bank, how does mutuality fit River Run’s growth strategy?
A: The best that I can say is, I told you what drew me was the model. I’m committed to the mutual model that is core to who River Run is. From my perspective first is, obviously: grow from within each of our banks, deepening relationships that we’ve got already with the businesses, consumers that are already in the market and deliver organic growth. That is honestly focus number one. I’d say second is, how do we deliver more efficiencies with our shared platform so each bank can offer more to their customers? More by way of digital, more by way of data products, but without losing their local identities because they are so deeply entrenched in their communities.
The last thing I’d say is we’re designed to be a partner for like-minded mutuals. We’ll still open a conversation with institutions that share our values, but I just want to say that the focus right now is very much on the first two. It’s on serving our communities in the best way that we can, the ones that we’re already in at the moment.
Q: How do you reflect on your time with Eastern?
A: I had the good fortune of working at Eastern, obviously prior to that at Citi. I’ve had the benefit of having different vantage points, having moved around quite a bit, and the ability to work in different functions and departments. At Eastern, specifically, I worked across lending, a lot of strategy, then marketing and most recently in product. I think that gave me a unique perspective and almost a 360-degree view, and a close view of what customers expect from their bank and how to deliver it in a way that still feels personal to clients. I very strongly believe community banks have always distinguished themselves based on the level of service and how they deliver that to their clients. I have a unique perspective in just the fact that I’ve done all of these different things. It’s not the traditional path as you would imagine but I think that also makes it much more interesting and arms me with a lot of different perspectives.
Q: How do you think community banks’ expectations when it comes to products have potentially changed?
A: I really think at the end of the day, customers want something that’s intuitive. This is not rocket science. It boils down to the basics of: You have to deliver a seamless experience, regardless of what channel a customer is deciding to leverage. Be it the call center, be it walking into a branch, being digital, how can we deliver the most intuitive and easy way for a customer to get from point A to point B in their financial journey. How is it frictionless for clients, and how easy it is for them? Do they have to jump through hoops? Is it non-intuitive?
They sound simple enough, but I think they are the hardest to deliver. My big learning was, when you are designing, [the need to] deliver the best experience possible in person, but also digitally. How could you mirror that and make sure that you’re also designing anything that you build? Think how will you deliver that digitally to our clients? Is that easy? Is it intuitive, and can the customer self-service? And where are there points of friction?
Make sure that we are there for our clients should they need us for anything so we’re not leaving them hanging, to go figure that out themselves. That there’s always a person, even if the customer is trying to navigate something digitally, to help them through it. But honestly, build it so that they wouldn’t even have to call us. That’s how I always think about it. I feel pretty passionately about that, and almost maniacal about how we deliver that digital experience so it’s seamless for our clients.
Yadav’s Five Favorite Podcasts
- “The Daily”
- “Planet Money”
- “Revisionist History”
- “Smartless”
- “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”
