Jorge Gonzalez President & CEO City National Bank of Florida
How do you combine banking technology with the need to maintain a connection to people? At the end of the day, we recognize that clients want multiple channels of connectivity, and some want multiple channels at different times. We have to provide that. At some point, they want to speak to a human being. At another, they want to engage with us through their smartphones. Our business model is peoplecentric; we are not a mass retail bank but a private and commercial bank. Our clientele values the relationship provided by people, but we have to provide the best technology to support our people in delivering the best possible experience. We have invested heavily in all the right applications and platforms to support our people and clients. The market has reacted well to our business model. We would not have otherwise grown as we have in the last five to 10 years. You have to make sure you hire the right people. You need to have people who have the right values and understanding of what is important to clients. . What challenges is the industry facing regarding data security and cyber threats? The whole industry is facing cybersecurity issues, but the good news is that one of our main investment priorities is cybersecurity and privacy of information. This is not going away. Having the right size is important because you have to have the capital, the resources and the talent to properly invest in this area. There is not much margin for error. What risk-mitigation strategies is the bank implementing to address a potential downturn? In working to address that, we have tried to stay true to a disciplined approach to business, whether at the peaks or valleys of the economic cycles. We don’t get overly excited when things are too good, nor overly conservative when things are bad. At the end of the day, it’s about picking the right clients and the right transactions. 100 | Invest: Tampa Bay 2020 | BANKING & FINANCE
The banking and financial services sector invests billions of dollars into technology each year.
banks and community banks. Perhaps one of the most significant stories of the year was the $66 billion merger of BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. to form the sixth-largest banking entity in the United States with more than $425 billion in combined assets. The merger closed in mid-December with approvals from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The new bank, rebranding as Truist Financial Corp, will be headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, but it will have a considerable regional footprint throughout the Southeast. It is part of a consolidation trend seen across the nation’s banking industry, although the trend isn’t all positive. “M&A can be good for our business because as the transactions are happening, we are usually involved in the diligence side or the valuation side. The flipside to that is when these acquisitions happen, it’s another bank we can’t
