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Fred DeBiasi
CEO
Valley Central Bank
Interview conducted by:
Bud Wayne, Editorial Executive
CEOCFO Magazine
Published – August 12, 2024
CEOCFO: Mr. DeBiasi, you were named CEO of Valley Central Bank in January 2021 after serving as its President and Chief Operating Officer. Tell us about your role and how it developed and changed over the past four years?
Mr. DeBiasi: I came to the bank through a merger. I was president and CEO of American Savings Bank in Middletown, Ohio. American Savings Bank was technically acquired by Valley Central Bank in 2019 right before COVID. The plan was that after an interim period of roughly a year to eighteen months I was to take over after the merger from the current CEO who planned to retire. The plan was for me to assume that role in 2021, which in effect happened.
The bank at that time was looking to solve a management succession issue and was looking to have someone on the bench that would replace the existing CEO who was planning to retire. They vetted me and saw me as a viable leader of the organization post-
CEOCFO: What type of leader are you, are you hands-
Mr. DeBiasi: We are a small organization. We communicate often with the management team. My philosophy is to bring in the most talented people that you can, give them a road map, and then stay out of their way. I am certainly available for guidance anytime but I like to bring in talent from whatever area we are looking to fill and allow them to run with it. I do not like to be micromanaged and I do not like to micromanage others.
CEOCFO: Have there been any significant changes to your team over the past few years?
Mr. DeBiasi: We have upgraded our management team and brought in a very talented CFO in the last year and a half. We also brought in a Chief Lending Officer over the past three years. They are both very strong individuals. My philosophy is, given that we are a community bank, I like to personally recruit the management team. I try not to rely on search firms. I like to recruit people that I know and people I have had a personal experience with that have a proven track record.
I have been fortunate that I have been able to bring on talented individuals just through my past relationships having been in this industry over 33 years. I have gotten to know who the “A” players are and who the stronger team members could be and I go out and recruit those people. My background is in lending so I was a commercial lender and a business development officer during my career. I also started on the credit side. I was an underwriter early in my career and advanced into the retail side of the bank and then eventually graduated to the commercial side of the bank, which is where my background was mostly.
CEOCFO: How did you get into banking? Was this something you always wanted to do?
Mr. DeBiasi: It has been well over thirty years ago. When I was in college at Miami University in Oxford Ohio, I was an accounting major and originally my designs were to become a CPA. As I progressed through the course work and toward the end of my college career, I decided I did not want to get into public accounting but I also did not want to change my major. I thought accounting would give me a strong foundation for business whether I became a CPA or not, so I started interviewing with other firms and there was a bank which is now First Financial Bank and they were recruiting on campus. I will never forget the HR person Brian Moriarty who was recruiting on campus. He loved recruiting Miami University Grads, as he was a Miami Grad himself.
Brian was recruiting for First Financial Bank at that time when they were First National Bank of Southwestern Ohio, and I ended up deciding to pursue a career in banking but I had not planned on it. Brian convinced me that it would be a very good place to work so I was hired there and spent the first sixteen years of my career there before moving on. I’ve really only worked for two companies in my entire career, one was First Financial Bank and then American Savings/Valley Central Bank as a result of the merger.
CEOCFO: Would you give us a little background and history of the bank and how it developed from its founding in 1884?
Mr. DeBiasi: We are currently celebrating our 140th year in business. The bank started in 1884 and still is today a mutual savings bank. It was founded like many banks at that time by the German Catholic community in Cincinnati. At that time, a lot of the folks did not have a bank, so they borrowed or met their financial needs through the Archdiocesan Bank of Cincinnati but I believe the Archdiocesan bank failed around that time. A lot of mutual banks sprouted up around Cincinnati as a result of that to meet the needs of the community and our bank was one of them. After being founded by the German Catholic community, it evolved from there. Incidentally, American Savings Bank from which I came from was founded four years later in 1889, also by the German Catholic community in Middletown, Ohio.
I believe for the longest time and maybe even today Cincinnati and Ohio in general per capita has the second or third largest concentration of mutual banks in the country. I think off the top of my head only Massachusetts has more mutual banks per capita than Ohio. Unfortunately, over the years, it has dried up with mergers and acquisitions. There used to be a mutual bank on practically every street corner in Cincinnati. As the industry in general consolidates, there are fewer mutual banks. We remain a mutual and we have no current designs to change our structure. We have been a mutual for 140 years and we are proud of it.
CEOCFO: There are benefits to the community in that!
Mr. DeBiasi: Yes there are. We believe that the community has greater access to capital with mutual banks in existence. We still believe strongly in the model and what we provide.
CEOCFO: When you became the bank’s CEO back in 2021 you said, “We are an organization led by a purpose – to make a positive, meaningful impact with our customers and community.” Is that the same today and if so, how are you making that happen on a day-
Mr. DeBiasi: That has not changed. At the end of the day we want to make an impact in the communities we live in and serve. By doing that, we try to hire people that live in our communities. We are active in our communities and we try as best we can with our staff and team to give back to the communities we serve as well as serve on local boards to make an impact. I believe that is important. Whenever I personally serve on a local Board, I try to leave that organization in better shape than I found it. I think that has been our driving philosophy.
We also want to make a financial impact in peoples’ lives in terms of whether it is helping someone buy their first home or their next step up home, or starting a small business and providing the capital and the guidance that the people are looking for. We are not going to bank larger middle market companies. We are more geared toward the consumer and small businesses. That is the niche that we look to serve. We try to do it by giving people a better experience because they are banking with people they know. They are banking with people that are in their community that they see at the grocery store or they may attend church with. That is where we try to make a bigger impact.
CEOCFO: I read that you are a leader in the community, providing home mortgages, loans to small businesses, and a wide range of deposit products to meet diverse needs. Tell us about those deposit products and if getting deposits is still important for you.
Mr. DeBiasi: The lifeblood of any bank is gathering deposits because that is the fuel that makes the engine go. If you do not have deposits, you struggle to lend money. We are always going to look to be a depository and we try to provide competitive products. We are a small bank but the beauty of it is that with technology today it is becoming more accessible to everybody.
We try to offer as many of the bells and whistles and tools that the bigger banks provide in terms of online banking, mobile apps, etc. We are never going to be cutting-
CEOCFO: You have locations in Liberty Township, Reading-
Mr. DeBiasi: We have a wide array of what I would consider large employers and industries tied to healthcare and education. Where I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, we were a traditional smokestack industry where AK Steel was the main employer. The paper industry was prevalent in our community as well, but it was primarily a steel town. Our fortunes went with how the steel industry went and over time that has changed. The steel mill is still there but the community has diversified somewhat away from just being dependent on one industry.
Liberty Township is more of a bedroom community. I would not say there is a primary industry but there are a lot of successful small businesses. Proctor & Gamble is probably the largest player in Cincinnati in terms of being one of the well-
CEOCFO: What is it about your lending team that allows them to be successful?
Mr. DeBiasi: We pride ourselves on being local with local decision-
CEOCFO: How many branches do you have and are you looking to grow that number shortly?
Mr. DeBiasi: Interestingly in recent years, primarily because of COVID we contracted. We had five locations at one time, one of the locations was a loan production office. After COVID we felt that our delivery network was not very efficient so we decided to close one of our branches in Middletown that was maybe less than three miles from the existing branch. We had a loan production office in a suburb of Cincinnati called Montgomery that we felt was not very efficient and we felt we could deliver the same services without it. We were leasing that facility, so when our lease came up we decided not to renew it.
We are actually down to three locations, but they are all very prevalent in each of the communities. Right now we do not have any designs to add any branches. If we did it would probably be through an acquisition where we would acquire another bank. That is not to say that we would not entertain it if the opportunity came along but we are not actively looking to add any branches.
After COVID we found that people's behaviors changed and people, particularly the Baby Boom generation, realized that they could still meet their needs without walking inside the door. They could go through a drive-
CEOCFO: You have a Facebook page. What do you use social media for? Is it more community and events-
Mr. DeBiasi: We try to use Facebook to create awareness and tell our story. We keep it light. Some of our team members may attend leadership classes in Columbus. We like to tell people that our people are out trying to better themselves and gain more knowledge. We also promote some of our products if we are running a special or if we have a new program that we are participating in that can help for instance a first-
A lot of what we do on social media replaces a lot of maybe the old print advertising that we used to do. We used to advertise a lot in our local newspaper, but we are not doing that anymore unfortunately. That has gone by the wayside, so we are trying to use social media or our website to tell our story. We do not use a marketing firm to do that. We are doing it internally and I think we do a good job and we feel good about what we have been able to do with social media.
CEOCFO: What sets Valley Central Bank apart from other local banks and why are you important to the fabric of the community?
Mr. DeBiasi: I think we provide a valuable service in terms of an easy, convenient access to capital. We provide a better experience and we have a strong team of lenders and relationship managers across the board in every community we serve. I believe people have a better experience at our bank versus the institution across the street. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good banks out there and a lot of good institutions, it is competitive and we are all striving to provide the same services and experience. I know I am biased but I feel we do it better and deliver it better. We deliver it in a manner where people want to come back and continue to have that experience. Fortunately, I can name several examples. We have people that we have put in three or four different homes or refinanced their home multiple times and they keep coming back because they enjoy the experience.
When they do walk in the door, they are greeted on a first-
Don't get me wrong, there is no shortage of challenges in our industry, we are the most regulated industry in the country by far. Therefore, there are challenges and mandates placed upon us that make our jobs and our lives difficult, but I believe through all that we still serve our communities well and we will continue to do so.
CEOCFO: In closing, it seems like community banks are the one place people go that still has that “Mayberry RFD feel,” much like that classic TV show, where you are recognized by your name.
Mr. DeBiasi: When we were in the process of merging the two banks, we were very transparent with the people in our community. We let everyone know what was going on in advance of the merger. Some were concerned that the merger would change the model and how we do business at the bank. I said, “No, look at it as the Bank of Mayberry merging with the Bank of Mt. Pilot.” The banks are mirror images of each other, we are just going to be a little larger. However, the culture is not going the change and the philosophy is not going to change. Fortunately, everyone realized that was the case, and together we are stronger.
It is pretty rare that two mutual banks merge together, but we did it and we are happy that we did.