BANKING & FINANCE
William Bahl
Timothy Ballinger
Archie Brown
CO -F O UND ER AND CHA I R M A N Bahl & Gaynor
PRESIDENT AND CEO General Electric Credit Union
PRESIDENT AND CEO First Financial Bank
Bahl and Vere Gaynor founded the investment advisory firm in 1990. Bahl has almost 45 years in the business, working previously for Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, Fifth Third in Cincinnati, and Northern Trust of Chicago. The employee-owned firm has more than 50 staff who help manage or advise clients with almost $17.5 billion in assets.
Ballinger has been with the company since 1994 and held the top job since 2015. It has expanded its membership to almost 200,000 members and has $4 billion in assets. The company is moving its corporate office to a 90,000-square-foot building it bought in Blue Ash two years ago. By year’s end, it will have added six new branch offices since last year: Oakley, Florence, Montgomery, Eastgate, South Lebanon, and West Chester.
Brown became the top executive when First Financial merged with MainSource Financial of Greensburg, Indiana, in 2018. It was cited by the Federal Reserve Board for outstanding performance under the Community Reinvestment Act. The company opened three branches in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods last year, including one at Paramount Square in Walnut Hills.
Hometown: Cincinnati Education: University of Florida (undergraduate), University of Michigan (MBA)
Hometown: Cincinnati Education: University of Cincinnati
(undergraduate), Xavier University (MBA), University of Delaware (master’s) How are your employees feeling as they and your business emerge from the pandemic? The past year actually accented our employee communications. As the result, while the pandemic certainly didn’t provide positive feelings, our regular communications were positives for the employees.
Hometown: Cincinnati Education: University of Georgia (undergraduate), Xavier University (MBA) What has been the toughest challenge for you as a business leader during the COVID-19 pandemic? It changed the way the
banking industry serves our clients, seemingly overnight. We made tens of thousands of outreach calls to check on consumers and business clients, created our own client relief programs, and helped facilitate the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program.
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