For more than 40 years, the Sheshunoff Affiliation Program has helped bankers by offering a platform for the sharing of ideas, networking and opportunity development. The Fall 2025 Sheshunoff Chief Executive Officer Affiliation Program will be here soon and we hope you are already making plans to join us.
Reasons to Join Us in Fall 2025:
- Network with other top community bank executives from across the country
- Gather ideas that will help you drive excellent performance and value throughout your organization
- Return to your bank with actionable items that can be promptly implemented
- Learn the best practices and innovations from some of the banking industry’s finest intellectual leaders
- Participate in the High-Performance Idea Exchange – an open forum to discuss hot topics in the industry in a round table format
- Economic Update – Dr. Ed Seifried will discuss the latest predictions and analyze the Fed’s latest policy actions.
Fall Meetings:
- Sept. 9-11: The Inn at Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach, CA
- Sept. 29-Oct. 1: The Ritz-Carlton, Naples, Naples, FL
- Oct. 20-Oct. 22: Four Seasons Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, WY
- Oct. 28-30: Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, Frisco, TX
Sessions will include:
- High Performance Idea Exchange (Neil Stanley, The CorePoint) – The High Performance Idea Exchange provides Chief Executive Officers with a unique opportunity to discover best practices and to learn from the bankers who are implementing these ideas. Attendees will share their innovative thoughts and ideas in a roundtable format. In addition, we will utilize pre-meeting attendee survey results to focus on the topics of greatest interest to all. This session will encourage the free exchange of ideas among bankers, explore methods to improve your bank’s overall performance and productivity, and evaluate the challenges banks are facing and how to address those challenges.
- Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Fraud, Scams and Data Breach (Erin Illman, Bradley) – Nefarious activity by malicious actors has been a threat to financial institutions for decades. Yet, financial crime continues to plague institutions, and criminal intrusions such as data breaches have increased dramatically, despite a concerted effort to address fraud. Combating these attacks requires the coordination and cooperation of various business units, teams, and outside advisors. Bankers will leave with a practical understanding of the risks, how regulators define elements of a security incident, and how to appropriately respond to and minimize fall-out from these attacks.
- Compensation Trends in Community Banking (Robert Flowers, Bradley) – This session focuses on a variety of compensation trends we are seeing in community banking, such as equity-based compensation, incentive-based compensation, and golden handcuff payments. We will also discuss the growing trend of including restrictive covenants in compensation arrangements – are they enforceable, what is common, and are they useful? The conversation will be geared toward addressing practical trends in light of the highly competitive nature of recruiting bank talent of all experience levels.
- Optimizing Business Outcomes: Real World Use Cases for AI and Strategic Advantages in Contract Negotiations and Vendor Management (Onker Basu and Nick Lane, Cornerstone Advisors) – Many executives struggle to understand what AI could be used for. And others may be using AI and not realize it. The first half of this session will explore real-world use cases of AI in community banking. Technology and Processing costs are a bank’s second highest noninterest spend behind people. The second half of this session will discuss contract negotiation best practices and the hidden gotchas in vendor agreements to give you a competitive advantage at the negotiation table. We will also discuss vendor management best practices to ensure you are getting the most out of your vendor partners.
- Industry and Bank Pricing Trends (John Adams- Sheshunoff Investment Banking) – Deposit costs appear to have peaked and net interest margins are expanding modestly, but economic uncertainty is turning the spotlight toward asset quality. A long-awaited rebound in bank stocks in late 2024 ran up against tariff volatility in 2025 but could still lead to improved bank M&A prices, as well as increased deal volume, reversing the M&A trends seen since 2023 which began with a few high-profile bank failures in March of that year. To better inform banks as they plan strategically for the future, we will study the current trends in bank performance and valuation levels for bank stocks and M&A transactions after a period of historically weak M&A volume and pricing in 2023 and 2024.
- Charting the Future: A Blueprint for Successful CEO and C-Suite Succession (Dr. Julie Bell and Scott Petty, Chartwell Partners) – Succession planning isn’t just about filling roles—it’s about securing the future. Join us for a strategic, forward-looking conversation on building a sustainable pipeline for your bank’s C-Suite leadership. In this session, we’ll explore how to proactively prepare for executive transitions, minimize disruption, and maintain continuity at the top. You’ll walk away with a practical, actionable blueprint designed to ensure a seamless leadership handoff and long-term organizational resilience.
- Economic Update (Dr. Ed Seifried) – It now appears that the Trump administration has completed a U-turn on its highly controversial tariff initiative. The market reaction to the almost daily tariff announcements were unmistakably negative. The markets suffered their worst declines in decades. As the tariffs were suspended or removed, the markets regained most of the lost ground. But, market chaos was not the only casualty of the tariff episode. It now appears that the interest rate cuts that many expected throughout 2025 will be postponed. What will happen to US growth, inflation and the labor market due to all of the uncertainty is yet to be determined. Join us as Dr Ed tries to explain what is likely to happen in the economy in 2025-26.
To sign up for the 2025 Chief Executive Officer Affiliation Program, the renewal form can be found here.
We limit the size of each group so we encourage you to make your plans early as others are doing. To register or to find out more about our 2025 program, contact Karen Peterman at kpeterman@smslp.com or 512.703.1558.
We also offer Affiliation programs for Chief Financial Officers, Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officers, Technology and Operations Officers, and Senior Loan Officers. More information on all of Affiliation Programs can be found here.
