Industry Forward: Financial institutions Charlie Cameron and Josh Juergensen

• March 26, 2019
• John Langan

Charlie and Josh have taken two very different career
journeys in the FI industry, but they agree passionately on this: an
entrepreneurial approach to serving banks and credit unions is what sets CLA
apart. Together they lead our FI practice, which now boasts $70M in revenue,
more than 250 staff members, and roughly 1,500 clients. Let their stories of
grit and success inspire your own industry specialization path.

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Transcript

Charlie and Josh have taken two very different career journeys in the FI industry, but they agree passionately on this: an entrepreneurial approach to serving banks and credit unions is what sets CLA apart. Together they lead our FI practice, which now boasts $70M in revenue, more than 250 staff members, and roughly 1,500 clients. Let their stories of grit and success inspire your own industry specialization path.

[00:00:24]

John: Welcome CLA family to this podcast designed to tell the stories behind the CLA promise. I’m John Langan, chief industry officer for our regulated industries. We create opportunities when we live our culture as entrepreneurs, owners, and leaders. At the center of the CLA promise is our why: to create opportunities. Behind the CLA are a set of core beliefs. One of them is helping verse selling: A belief that specialization enables us to focus less on ourselves and our practice service specialty and more on our clients’ needs and opportunities.

[00:01:02]

As we get to know our clients better and help them more it will in fact result in growth for CLA. That’s industry specialization at CLA. Industry specialization equals growth along with better quality, profitability, and more inspired careers. But how do you get started? And how do you build a succession plan for yourself? To answer those questions, we’ve invited two industry specialists, financial institutions leaders MPI Charlie Cameron from our St. Louis office and Josh Juergensen, an FI principal in the Minneapolis office.

[00:01:39]

Charlie and Josh, welcome. You represent two ends of the industry journey, so exploring it from both of your perspectives will provide real insight to our audience. Let’s start with your personal stories. How long have you been with the firm? Tell us about your career and what you have that brought you to this place. And, Charlie, let’s start with you.

[00:02:00]

Charlie: Thanks, John. I’m in my eighth year now with CLA. I actually merged my legacy firm in at the beginning of 2012 when we first began operating at CLA. After spending a few years with the Big Four at the beginning of my career, I worked for 12 years for a regional bank holding company in St. Louis. After that bank was sold, I purchased a small niche bank consulting firm and ran it for 12 years. By hiring some good people, many of which are still with us today, we were able to grow consistently and establish a good reputation in the marketplace.

[00:02:38]

In 2017, I began transitioning into my current role FI. Our FI practice now stretches across the country, as totally revenue approximately $70 million, and consists of about 250 total staff members.

[00:02:54]

John: And I’ll bet as you started in this industry you had no idea you’d be sitting on top of revenue of that size.

[00:03:00]

Charlie: Absolutely no idea. It’s been a great ride.

[00:03:03]

John: So, Josh, tell us about your story.

[00:03:05]

Josh:  Thanks, John. I followed the more traditional career path starting right out of college coming to CLA back in 2007, currently in my 13th business season. By dumb luck, I happened to be placed in the financial institutions practice and here we are today. It’s been a crazy ride since 2007 coming right out of college into the largest economic crisis of–at least in my lifetime working with community banks.

[00:03:26]

I just assumed that every board around a community meeting consisted of discussions running, raiding off a number of bad loans or discussions regulators closing banks. Thankfully that’s not the case and here we are today with, like Charlie said, a very large and successful FI practice.

[00:03:38]

John: So you’ve had baptism by fire through the 2008 financial crisis.

[00:03:43]

Josh:  Yes, definitely.

[00:03:44]

John: So you’ve both taken interesting journeys to get where you are today. And so, Charlie, what are some of the key decisions that you’ve had to make along the way, both planned and unplanned, as you moved along your desired career path.

[00:03:58]

Charlie: Well, John, I would say first that just being entrepreneurial back when I purchased my legacy firm and then, after being a sole owner for 12 years, making the decision to join what would become CLA. After being a sole owner, I knew that we had more growth potential, but that we needed the resources of a larger firm to continue that growth and to offer better long-term career opportunities to our people.

[00:04:27]

Then in 2017 accepting the leadership role at FI that I serve in today and, you know, in short I accepted that role because I believed in this strategic platform of our firm, and I knew that the key to FI could continue to be successful was just executing on the core principals of that strategic platform.

[00:04:50]

John: So, Josh, Charlie had his own practice and brought it in and he had all the experiences that went along with that. You said you took the more traditional route right out of school coming into what has become a very large firm. How do you build off of the experiences you’ve had but also some of the ones you haven’t to sort of round out your experience as you try to build your career.

[00:05:11]

Josh:  Yeah, I’ve been very fortunate. From the standpoint of when I started, this was already an established financial institution practice. Learning from people like Terry Yanger and Jerry Ferachelly and Neil Falken and now Charlie and others, they played a big role in developing what we have here today, but now it’s on myself and a number of other younger leaders in our FI practice to continue the momentum that they’ve started and to continue to allow us to grow.

[00:05:34]

We have over 1,500 financial institution clients across the country that, when we walk into many of those institutions, they know who we are just by name recognition alone. That wasn’t necessarily the case when I started back in 2007. At the end of the day, it comes down to serving our clients and giving them the opportunities with our support. For me, it’s always been very important to have that entrepreneurial mindset and “how can we help our clients.”

[00:05:56]

And that’s one thing that I’ve learned over the years from Charlie and others can continue doing that as we go forward in the future.

[00:06:02]

John: And what I can hear in your voice is the energy and the passion behind doing that, and I think that’s probably a big part of being able to be hungry, to have that business even though you weren’t in a position where you had to build the initial firm. So, Charlie, as important as industry specialization is and a key strategic priority of the firm, the service mix, the services that we bring to those clients to become a true professional services firm are equally as important.

[00:06:31]

So talk to me about how you looked to leaders like Josh to employ those disciplines in terms of building a more holistic platform.

[00:06:46]

Charlie: Yeah, John, our service mix is clearly shifting. Today, insurance and tax make up already less than half of our FI revenue and that percentage continues to decline. Due to industry consolidation and other factors, we know that achieving 7% growth in the insurance area is going to be difficult. Our industry greatest opportunities lie in the consulting and outsourcing areas. So executing on seamless integration is really paramount to our FI practice.

[00:07:17]

So we’ve asked young leaders like Josh and others to connect in a greater way with our key service side leaders within their growth networks to plan, set strategy, and go to the market as one coordinated team, one firm.

[00:07:33]

John: So, Charlie, you said it’s going to be difficult to get 7% organic growth through the insurance and tax compliant services, but if we’re honest, it’s almost impossible.

[00:07:43]

Charlie: That’s exactly right, and our recent history shows that, John.

[00:07:46]

John: Right. So, Josh, your service concentration at this point is audit. How do you approach clients, prospects, and financial institution centers of influence to incorporate a more holistic approach to our service platform?

[00:08:01]

Josh:  Yeah, John, the seamless integration of all those services is something that’s got to be very important to us. For me, personally, it’s all about relationship building. I spend a lot of my time recruiting on campus with a lot of students, and we frequently get the question “what do I enjoy most about my job?” And for me, it’s working with all the clients that we have. If you go through my sent items box, there’s a lot of clients that I’m addressing as “hey buddy” or “good to see you again,” things like that where we’ve got a much closer relationship than just as a client.

[00:08:28]

I don’t want to be viewed as their auditor or as their tax preparer. For me, it’s very important that they view us as their strategic partner. We want to be that first person that they call any time that they’ve got a question from a financial standpoint surrounding their business because we are working with those key decision makers. When I’m looking at financial institutions specifically, many of our clients–at least in the community bank inside–they are the majority shareholder.

[00:08:51]

They are the owner of the bank, and we’re working directly with them to help them manage the largest financial asset that they have. So I don’t want to be that tax preparer or that auditor. I want to be that first person that they look at as a strategic partner to help the success of their organization into the future.

[00:09:05]

John: So, Charlie, we’re throwing a lot at young leaders like Josh that we didn’t really have to do as we came up. We were very concentrated in our service areas. So what is some of the advice that you might have to Josh and other young leaders about how they sort of block out the noise and stay focused on the key areas because there’s so many things you could be doing but trying to figure out where you should put your priorities in a very busy world can be difficult.

[00:09:35]

Charlie: Yeah, that’s a great question, John, because it’s a fairly frequent topic and discussion with our young leaders. Our leaders all naturally get involved in a variety of initiatives, internally and externally. But there’s an old saying that if everything is a priority, then you don’t have any priorities. So we all have to deal with those challenges, but I believe that’s it’s really important that we stay focused on the why and the how of our firm.

[00:10:01]

When you break it down, our ability to bring opportunities to our people and our communities really starts with delivering first-class service to our clients and creating opportunities for our clients. And, of course, we do that by knowing and helping our clients through deep industry specialization.

[00:10:20]

So my advice to our young leaders is that, you know, our activities need to be centered around the why and the how for our firm, and if we keep that focus and develop our daily, weekly priorities, et cetera, around that focus, I think that can lead you to a successful career at CLA.

[00:10:39]

John: Absolutely and, Josh, I had always that financial institution professionals wanted to be with Big Four firms serving publically-held clients. Why did you choose to build your FI career at CLA and where our profile client is typically not public and decidedly smaller?

[00:10:58]

Josh:  Yeah, John, when I started with CLA back in 2007, we didn’t have name recognition to go out and get in front a lot of those larger institutions. Back when I started in ’07, we had about 800 or so employees across the entire firm, and now we have more than that in just the Minneapolis office alone. So as we’ve grown the number of opportunities we’ve had in front of those larger institutions has presented itself more frequently than it has. So I grew up on the community banking side.

[00:11:21]

Now that being said, I really do enjoy the fact of working directly with the owners, like I mentioned before. You’re working with those key decision makers to really have an impact and an influence on where their organization is going. To put into perspective when I started back in 2007, our average bank size was probably around $250 million in assets or so. As I look to where we’re at today, we’re probably around a billion dollars in average asset size for many of our audit clients that we have today.

[00:11:45]

And that number is only going to increase. We’ve got a stated initiative within financial institutions that we’re going to specifically target with larger institutions and get in front of those more often, really driving home the outsourcing opportunities and the consulting opportunities that Charlie mentioned. But I really have enjoyed the smaller institutions because you can really get your arms around that organization and really capitalize on all the different service lines we have to offer to our clients.

[00:12:11]

John: And while our profile client size is getting larger, I think it is fair to say that there’s just more of them, and they typically are underserved. Is that correct?

[00:12:20]

Josh:  100% correct. There’s not a lot of other firms that are out there specifically connecting with community banks. For example, we have spent a number of years–I believe it’s over 20 years now–serving with Independent Community Bank of America, the largest trade association for community banks, and they have been a great referral source for us and a great revenue generator for us as well over the years.

[00:12:40]

John: That’s great. Yeah, I like to say that, in a very big organization that has great controls and full complementive resources, all they’re really doing is buying our letterhead, and that’s not very fulfilling. But these smaller midsize and growing-in-size clients have more need and that provides more opportunity for them and for us. So, Charlie, specifically, what are some of the services that you’re trying to drive through FI?

[00:13:08]

Charlie: There are many, John. We really do have a very broad array of consultian outsourcing services that FI delivers. Probably the easiest way to describe that menu is just to think about the different risk areas of our clients, and most of those risk areas we’re delivering on a variety of services. So those areas would include regulatory compliance, credit risk management services, information systems, security, strategic services, et cetera.

[00:13:37]

You know, John, now we have approximately 100 FI staff members that specialize outside the traditional audit tax areas. That’s about 40% of our FI staff. So I’m really excited about the career opportunities that we are creating for our people in these consulting and outsourcing service lines.

[00:13:59]

John: That’s great, Charlie. Josh, FI had double digit growth in 2018. Congratulations to both of you for that. But it brings its own challenges. So what are you and the FI industry group doing to elevate and accelerate the careers of the FI professionals and build a practice base on effective client transitions and succession, which I know is critical to building a successful legacy practice?

[00:14:25]

Josh:  Like many other industries, I would have to assume, we do have a challenge with succession planning within FI as we look to our existing leadership group. We’ve had a number of retirements over the last couple of years, and we’ll have a number more as we go into the next three to five years.

[00:14:38]

Charlie and the strategic leadership committee of FI have done a great job of giving myself and a number of other younger leaders within the practice the opportunity to lead various committees and get involved as much as we would like to be involved in a number of things across the group. As an example, Charlie has asked me to lead the FI learning and career development committees.

[00:14:57]

I’m also working with David Heneke, another partner out of our St. Cloud office, to lead our financial service innovation committee, where we really try to take a look at some of the things that are going be disrupting the financial institutions industry to go forward.

[00:15:09]

We’re also putting emphasis on educating many of our younger and up-and-coming leaders in the organization as well. I’m talking about people that are in the three to four to five to six year range, giving them opportunities to try to educate them about what all we do because if they’re not educated about what we does as a firm, it’s going to be tough for them to create opportunities for both themselves and their clients.

[00:15:27]

So we’re really trying to be proactive in that and giving those people that have stepped up and set themselves apart, giving them an opportunity to grow their career at the pace that they want to.

[00:15:36]

John: Charlie, Josh mentioned earlier about thought leadership and the importance of that and building yourself as an industry professional, making yourself a “famous person.” In FI, how do you go about challenging your leaders and giving them that opportunity to become that famous person?

[00:15:54]

Charlie: Okay. Well, first I would say, establishing yourself as an industry expert is becoming increasingly important for our young leaders. We’ve already talked, John, that the insurance opportunities in the marketplace due to industry consolidation are declining overall. So I believe that if you’re a relationship leader in FI, becoming that strategic advisor for your clients is the key to opening the door to execution of seamless.

[00:16:21]

So providing thought leadership is a big part of becoming a recognized industry expert. You know, that can look different for different leaders. We don’t necessarily dictate approach, but we certainly emphasize to all of our young leaders getting involved in thought leadership.

[00:16:38]

John: And that thought leadership, I assume, would be around industry associations, articles, white papers, speaking, and doing, I guess, in a way with your non-charge hours so that you can balance your life at the same time.

[00:16:53]

Charlie: Absolutely and one of the tools that some of our folks have really done a great job of developing is a blog for FI.

[00:17:01]

John: Yeah. Yeah, congratulations on that. So, Josh, one of the things that comes up a lot with all the things that get thrown at us on a daily basis is how do we stay on top of our business acumen? You know, the charge it, bill it, collect it, the really nuts and bolts of this business. As a young leader with all that you have coming at you, how do you and your peers kind of look at that and make sure that you’re covering that expectation?

[00:17:27]

Josh:  John, the beauty of working with financial institutions, the collective part is generally pretty easy ’cause if there’s one thing that banks and credit unions have is money. So, generally speaking, collecting our invoices is usually not an issue for us. But from a charging standpoint, I have been very proud with how our group has adopted the daily time reporting mentality. When I grew up, that wasn’t necessarily the case, the expectation that you had to do that on a daily basis.

[00:17:49]

And as we’ve transitioned into that, I’ve been very proud of how our group, by and large, has adopted this. We do have frequent conversations about the importance of working efficiently and charging for what you do. By no means do we ever want anybody eating their time, but we want to make sure that when extra time is necessary that we’re billing it appropriately and whenever that is warranted. From a billing standpoint, we made a concerted effort though over the last 6 to 12 months, John, of really trying to get some of our senior associates involved with billing.

[00:18:15]

I think that does a great job of getting them a better understanding of the business side of what we do, and it also helps give those individuals a little more insight of the importance of efficiency because when you’re in there actually working on creating the invoice and allocating the whip as needed, when we’re having to write off time it really puts into prospective the importance of working efficiently and really gets them up to speed quickly on why we do continue to talk about being efficient and recording our time in as much detail as we possibly can.

[00:18:42]

So I think that’s really kind of a good summary of where we’re at with this and I’ve been really happy with how people have stepped up and adopted some of the mindset that we have had surrounding charge it, bill it, and collect it.

[00:18:52]

John: Yeah, well we’d love to get you to help us get to a tipping point on the daily time entry and “don’t write off my time” mentality. So, Charlie, I’m going to give you the last question, which is really, as you get to the top of the stretch in terms of your career, what does success look like?

[00:19:12]

Charlie: Well, John, I would say that the goal is to establish the resources and develop the young leadership within our growth networks, so that we can consistently execute on the market opportunities that lie in those regions. And, although we are in an industry of disruption, I’m a big believer that disruption and innovation needs opportunity. So like many of our other industry practices at CLA, FI has become large enough now that we really are dependent upon strong growth network leadership.

[00:19:48]

So I believe that my job for my remaining years at CLA and really the job of our other FI strategic leaders is to create strong growth networks, to develop leadership within those growth networks and the resources that they need so their position to identify, create, and execute on opportunities. And, John, if I can, let me just say that I’m confident that we can make that happen because I think our greatest strength in FI is our young leaders.

[00:20:20]

We have one of them today in Josh Juergensen, but it’s terrific to see the type of young talent that we have in our FI practice.

[00:20:28]

John: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. It’s been quite a journey for both of you and a testament to creating opportunities with inspired careers, industry specialization, and the entirety of the CLA promise being realized in FI. So thank you both for joining us today.

[00:20:45]

Josh:  Thank you, John.

[00:20:46]

Charlie: Thanks, John.

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