ANNIE YAMSON
Daily Reporter
When Michael Van Buskirk told the board of directors of the Ohio Bankers League that he was retiring, he gave them a 15-year notice.
Van Buskirk, president and chief executive officer of the OBL, made the decision public in September of last year and since then, Mike Adelman, 47, has been slowly transitioning into the CEO spot.
Adelman will be taking over the position in the new year with 10 years of experience working for the OBL as vice president of state government relations and chief operating officer.
After a “grueling” selection process, Adelman said he was “pummeled to get the nod” from the board of directors, choosing him to lead the organization.
But he and the staff were very pleased they made it a priority to choose an internal candidate.
“Culture is a big thing at any organization,” said Adelman. “You bring in somebody from the outside and there are a lot of questions as to how it will impact the chemistry of the organization. I believe it was really important and certainly I’m appreciative that I was well-positioned to ascend into this CEO role.”
Aside from his slightly bigger office (which he noted, has no Jacuzzi or private bath), Adelman said that not much else will change.
During the course of the last 15 months, he has had the opportunity to make a slow transition, guided by Van Buskirk himself.
“It’s been a very great opportunity that I’ve had to work alongside Mike Van Buskirk as he slowly phased out of the CEO role and put more onto my shoulders in this position. It was a great sounding board and it was a luxury that I recognize most organizations do not have,” he said.
Although he’s transitioning from colleague and friend to boss, Adelman said he’ll still regularly be the first in the office and keep the same parking spot along with an open door policy. “I’m still just Mike,” he said.
Collaborative by nature, Adelman’s favorite part about working for the OBL is the staff, and he stressed that he plans to fuel the collaborative spirit and excitement that the organization is known for.
“I have a lot of respect for the fulcrum,” he said. “I’m looking at how we can best leverage the knowledge and expertise of the staff so that we can be in the best position in the industry.”
Along with his colleagues, Adelman said he loves going out to individual communities around the state and interacting with banks and thrifts in those areas, which he plans to do more frequently as CEO.
“It’s seeing the impact that they’re making in their local communities. They’re integral to the fabric of their communities and it’s exciting to be a part of that and knowing how involved they are, how serious they take their responsibilities to their (neighborhoods),” he said.
It’s no surprise that policy and community are big on Adelman’s agenda.
After his dreams of West Point were dashed by a high school football injury, he attended Ohio University and graduated with a degree in political science followed by a master’s in public administration with a specialization in public finance.
He accepted an opportunity in the early 1990s to intern at the nation’s capital with the joint economic committee and was exposed to banking and finance issues before taking another internship back home at the Ohio House of Representatives.
“My career was really focused on the budgeting process, the legislative process, public policy, specifically tax policy, so I’m wired that way as far as numbers go,” said Adelman.
At the Statehouse he met his wife Carrie, an aid in the House at the time, and eventually was offered a chance to leave state service and work for the OBL.
A big milestone came five years ago, when Adelman earned a degree from the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin.
One of the only non-bankers in the program, he learned fundamental banking issues and worked with individual banks to make recommendations for their products.
“It was a great opportunity for me to build credibility with some of our members and essentially go in like a consultant and absorb all of the data I could,” he said. “It’s no substitute for actually sitting across the counter from customers making loans ad taking deposits, but it certainly did educate me much more clearly on what it is bankers are doing on a daily basis and the meaningful, impactful things they’re doing.”
As a result, one of Adelman’s big focuses in his new role as CEO will be attracting new and diverse talent to the banking industry.
As baby boomers retire, he worries there won’t be sufficient new talent to make up for the shortage of employees and the influx of new banking regulations.
“That’s one of my longer-term goals — to really look at succession planning at the financial institutions,” he said. “Many of the banks have been so focused on keeping up with the onslaught of new compliance burdens that they’re facing, that they really haven’t had the ability to really focus on developing the next generation of leaders within their institutions so that they can take over as all these baby boomers retire.”
With internships, recruiting programs and building relationships with college campuses, Adelman said that the OBL will be better positioned to communicate the broader opportunities that exist within financial industries.
For instance, while most people think they need a finance degree or MBA to work in banking, Adelman said banks should be focused on recruiting and building talent from different skill sets and degree programs.
“We need people that have knowledge of human resources, marketing and IT,” he said, noting that in smaller banks especially, employees tend to wear a lot of different hats.
“I think if we don’t get our hands around this issue quickly, we really run the risk of the viability of banking in a lot of small communities around the state. I think too many may feel forced to sell their institutions because they don’t have a succession plan in place,” he said. “Certainly in the rural areas, what’s it going to take to get those kids to get their educations at the Ohio States, the OUs, wherever, and then go back home and work in the bank?”
Through his approach of “looking at the horizon” as well as developing relationships within the state legislature, Adelman plans to communicate the strength of the Ohio banking industry to the state’s public.
Working with Van Buskirk and the board during the past 15 months to prepare for his new role, Adelman said he has developed a clear vision, not only for the OBL, but also in his personal life.
“That was really influential, not just for this job but, hopefully my wife agrees, as a husband and a father,” he said.
At home, Adelman enjoys his life surrounded by women. He and his wife have their hands full with three daughters — a high school freshman and a set of seventh-grade identical twins.
Although he has little time for hobbies outside of work, he said he spends time with his daughters, all athletically inclined, by participating and volunteering at their sporting events.
In the past, he taught the Junior Achievement Financial Literacy Program at their elementary school.
A big advocate for consumer finance, he said that program and the OBL have helped him gain some much-needed perspective.
“It’s understanding what are my priorities, what truly are my values and what is it I am looking to create as far as opportunities for the staff here at the OBL as well as the 230 banks and thrifts that are headquartered in the state,” he said. “I’ll be going out to make sure that I have my hand on the pulse of our bankers in the state, to find out what their needs are, what type of solutions they’re looking for to tackle the issues that they are wrestling with.”