Dr. Angela Jackson on the Needham Bank Board and the Future of Work - On Boards Podcast | Lyssna här

Angela Jackson is the founder of Future Forward Strategies, an award winning social entrepreneur, a global C-suite executive and an experienced board member. In this episode Angela discusses joining the board of Needham bank, a mutual bank that took itself public in December 2023, as well as her research – and her vison – of the future of work.

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Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes:

1. Needham Bank Board of Directors and the decision to take the Bank public

Angela discusses some of the reasons that she was interested in joining the Needham Bank Board of Directors.

“The CEO, Joe Campanelli, is really a visionary leader with the strategy to support”

“As a board, when we talked about the reason for going public, this is right after Silicon Valley Bank had folded and we had the banking crisis, and…a lot of banks had put a lot of restrictions on their lending. We all felt – led by Joe, that if we were to IPO at this time, we would actually have more cash to put on the street to invest in local entrepreneurs and business leaders.”

Another reason to go public was around the values behind that. “They [management] wanted to do the IPO so they could invest in an employee stock ownership program, and for me and my work around the future of work, I deeply believe in companies and CEOs who are really seeing their employees as shareholders and the fact that we wanted to use the funds and to ensure that everyone from the frontlines to the C-suite could be an owner in a bank was significant.”

“…we looked at building a foundation that we could invest in local communities. For over a century, we had a history as a mutual community bank, and so we wanted to continue that. The vision is still how can we be national, but also hyper-local at the same time.”

We [the board] were completely aligned with how we wanted to use the money. It was values based to really invest in the community, who we're investing in, the talent and people, and then making sure that we were just being a good neighbor.

“… one more piece that struck me when I saw the board listing for Needham Bank…they were looking for someone with HR and human capital experience. If you look at most board listings, that is very rare. Most boards are looking for someone who's been a sitting CEO or a CFO, maybe someone in technology. You rarely see a listing for a human resource person.”

2. Ringing the Closing bell at NASDAQ

“It was an exciting moment for all of us.”

“We're based here outside Boston in Needham and we're going to go to New York for the NASDAQ…We thought, how are we going to get everyone from the bank to New York, and so they came up with the idea that we're going to take these coach buses from Needham Bank, and it would travel to New York.

“Now, you would think any bank CEO who's deciding to do this, maybe they would fly in, and they would be there to meet everyone. Actually, Joe Campanelli jumped on the bus with everyone else, shoulder to shoulder, to make that five-hour plus journey to New York and to take it back to be there.”

“The enthusiasm, the camaraderie, it was really the feeling of what had happened, that we did this, from the front lines to the C-suite, it was because of the effort of the people in the bank that were all customer facing, some that are internal, that made this moment happen, it was amazing.”

3. Board Practices

“One thing that I appreciated as I started out [as a new board member] is that we have full access to management, and we're encouraged to have a relationships with them.. If we have a question, we are comfortable going to them. And I think that transparency and access is key to really understanding what's happening and how we can best advise as a board.”

4. Decision making on the Needham Bank board

I've been impressed that even during the time of the IPO when we were moving quickly, the board was willing to go slow, to go fast, so sometimes you needed to just pause for a beat, send some things back to committee, call some of our advisors to make sure we were making the best decision. “Even though we wanted to be expedient about it was just great that we had the willingness to do that…it highlights the organization's approach to leveraging existing financial aid programs for greater effect.”

5. Board Culture

“Board culture starts with…deep trust and respect….for each other.”

I’ve never talked to a [Needham Bank} board member or staff member who had any doubts about [going public, and I think that's a reflection of the open & honest discussion that led to the decision.

6. Future of Work

“When I think about the future of work and really the future of boards, a lot of the issues that we're grappling with in the workplace today have a human capital component to them.”

“The future of work is how is…how do we ensure that the people that we're working with can be there, can show up and be their best selves that's going to lead to the business outcomes that we want.”

Links

The SEC wants to know if your corporate employer is investing in you. Fortune.: https://fortune.com/2021/11/23/sec-human-capital-great-resignation-employee-retention-reporting/