April 2019 Directors' Column

As our Members have shown interest in the background of their directors, I thought I would share a little of my journey to Bank First.

I started my working life as a Barrister, with a keen outside interest in athletics and mountaineering. I soon found myself managing ski resorts in Canada, the United States and Australia. I started working overseas as an alpine resort consultant until I chose to spend more time with my young family. I then commenced working with a private company with a diverse range of interests in aviation and aerospace, construction and development, tourism, education, resorts and philanthropy. There has been enough diversity within the group to keep me very active.

In almost every field I have worked, I found myself needing to develop a relationship with various banking institutions. The mutual banking sector gave me the caring relationship culture and character of an institution that was absent in my dealings with the big listed banks. I needed to be able to trust that my personal and family financial welfare was of paramount focus of those with whom I banked. I also saw no difference with my relationship needs in business banking either.

When the opportunity arose to join a mutual bank Board, I decided that this was a great opportunity to act on my belief that a banking institution had a continuing obligation to look after the interests of its customers, whose biggest investments in life (usually a home or car), are treated with integrity and fairness. Now, in my 9th year as a director of Bank First, from its time as a credit union to a mutual bank, I feel I have been a small part of that successful journey.

As life is not all about work, I also sit on the board of several charities, enjoy family activities, camping, skiing and spend as much time as I can sharing these pursuits with my partner and two adult sons.