Accelerating advancement: A Q&A with Jim Ryan about Old National’s CEO Council
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Evansville-based Old National Bank, Indiana’s largest bank and the sixth largest commercial bank headquartered in the Midwest, recently launched its second CEO Council cohort, a group of diverse, rising leaders within the company.
The 13 participants will work with mentors, coaches and each other over the next two years to accelerate their development and advise CEO Jim Ryan and the executive team on topics such as race, gender, bias and equity.
Ryan spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the advancement program and what it takes to create a more diverse senior leadership and executive leadership team.
What is the CEO Council at Old National Bank?
Participants are either female or racially diverse. This is the second group we started in May. The first one started in the spring of 2021 and lasted two years. It’s about a dozen people who I’d say are mid-career team members.
Where did this idea come from?
The idea of the council really started back a few years ago when we were talking about succession planning. How do we advance more females in the executive management ranks? How do we advance more racially diverse team members? Senior and executive management spots. How do we look inside the organization at people who are already performing at high levels and try to move them forward through the organization faster than they might naturally get there on their own?
The way we do that is to provide them with experiences that accelerate their learning. Give them new skills. We provide executive-level mentors. We help them build connections and relationships, especially with each other, which has been very powerful. These are people that might not naturally be connected because of the type of work they do or where they’re physically located. But now they’re going to create these bonds and relationships with each other.
Is succession planning more difficult now that people switch companies more often?
Every one of our executives has a successor. We put people into buckets of who’s ready now, who will be ready in three to five years and beyond. But people are transient. That’s why you need to have a robust setup of team members listed in those buckets. If those buckets aren’t filled, and people aren’t ready or they’re not on a path to getting ready—this (council) is a part of getting people on the path to getting ready.
We’re very transparent with people. We tell them: We think highly of you and want to create these types of opportunities for you, so you’ll be ready for these types of roles in the future.
What does the council do?
They build bonds and relationships with the previous cohort, board members and the whole executive leadership team. It’s just a great opportunity. We hire some executive coaches to help them be more introspective in their careers. Things they can do more of to continue to accelerate.
We also use them as a sounding board. How do we change policies? And these are sometimes related to underrepresented communities, but often times, it’s just related to how we do business. How do we get better at serving our clients? How can we do a better job supporting our team members? We’re using them to gain knowledge about our clients and how we run and organize the company.
How do you select the participants?
The participants come from all areas of our company: client-facing roles, audit, talent development. Anywhere you can think of. They’re nominated by a group of executive leaders who search our company looking for people who are doing a great job and will continue to advance. The question is: Can we help them advance faster? Pull them forward. We all know in this world, hard work is important but also having relationships is critical to people’s success.
What did the first cohort accomplish?
They learned a lot about themselves and their fellow cohort members. They had a very meaningful experience. Oftentimes, things can get personal as they’re learning about themselves. We bring in outside resources to encourage that.
Many of them have already taken new jobs to continue their journey. It didn’t take long for people who were still inside the experience to get new opportunities offered to them because of who they are and how hard they work and how good they are. But also because they were participating in this program.
What are your aspirations for the second cohort?
A measure of success is the feedback we receive. Was this a meaningful experience? Did you learn new skills? Did you build new relationships? Ultimately, we want to translate that into people being promoted faster, accelerating their careers. All of these folks have much broader relationships than they started the program with.
I meet with them all individually throughout the course. We talk about things going on inside and outside the company. We’re creating cross-functional relationships and interaction opportunities that produce deeper insights and better perspectives after going through the program.
What advice would you give to other businesses looking to start a CEO council?
This is something I’m really passionate about. You just have to go for it. It’s a little bit of trial and error.
One of the things I’m really proud of in my 20-plus-year career with this organization is the development programs we have in place. And they’re constantly evolving, constantly changing. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You can start these programs, get some experience, continue to leverage your resources and make adjustments when necessary. Ultimately, it’s about building deeper connections and relationships with team members.
Is this a program you’re likely to continue in the future?
This is a unique opportunity to really accelerate experiences for team members in a different, deeply personal way. It’s super important to get feedback from team members directly about things that are going well and things that could be done better, like serving our clients.
Oftentimes, the CEO has to be really guarded against getting the filtered version of the truth. To that extent, I spend an awful lot of time in front of team members and clients. I want to hear (feedback) directly—I don’t need it to pass through several filters. And hopefully, we can take that feedback and get better at whatever we’re doing for clients or communities or creating the best possible experience for our team members inside the company.