A LIFE-CHANGING OPPORTUNITY

Around 2008, Jim Mahan, an old friend from UK Athletics, called and said he and his dad — Chip Mahan — were starting a bank in Wilmington, North Carolina. They wanted JP on board.

Jim had worked in the UK Athletics’ Center for Academic and Tutorial Services as a liaison between players and coaches during JP’s college career. Then there was Chip.

“Chip Mahan is one of the greatest entrepreneurs to come out of Kentucky,” says JP. “Chip was playing the game on a different level than most people.”

They were starting a branchless bank that would lend to niche industries. JP was no banker, but Jim explained that the bank was putting a great team together and JP would be a great fit. Like in his backyard, in the company of his mother many years before, uncertainty flooded JP. He was without his father’s advice on a big decision for the first time in his life.

“I said to myself, ‘Can I really leave everything I know and all the people who love me to go and do something I know nothing about?’” says JP.

In keeping with JP’s life decisions up to that point, he chose challenge over comfort.

“When a great opportunity presents itself, even if you don’t know what you’re doing, say yes and figure it out,” says JP. “If it didn’t work out, I could always come back to Kentucky. After much prayer, this felt like an opportunity I should leave my comfort zone to pursue.”

It took a couple of years to get all the right pieces in line. Then, in 2010, JP drove the 10 hours to Wilmington, North Carolina, with his golden retriever, Maximus, to work at Live Oak Bank. It was a first-of-its-kind branchless bank, providing lending and deposit services to businesses nationwide. He was 29 years old, knew only two people in his new town, and knew almost nothing about banking.

It was challenging starting from scratch. JP promised himself he would not allow himself to leave before one year in his new role. To overcome the immense homesickness he felt, he committed himself to his work.

“I was hungry to learn about lending,” says JP. “I took credit memos home at night, I asked questions of people around me, I tried to be a sponge.”

His time as an athlete had prepared him to work hard and to work smart. It was all coming back to him.

“I was the first one at the office every day,” says JP. “I smiled at everyone. I found the people who knew the most and I learned from them.”

His investment in his new role paid dividends when the bank asked him to head a team lending in several niche industries. Under his leadership, he grew a team that lent about $60 million in loans annually to approximately $400 million.

In 2018, JP accepted the chief revenue officer job at Live Oak. He had come a long way from his small beginnings in the trading world. He thought back to the first time he walked onto the court at Rupp Arena wearing a Kentucky jersey, the fight song roaring overhead and his parents in the crowd.

“Live Oak had had 20 people working when I went down there. We used to work with our dogs at our feet,” says JP. “A few years later, we were ringing the bell on the NASDAQ.”

Live Oak currently employs over 1,000 people. It went public in 2015, bringing nearly $82 million into company coffers. In addition to the opportunity to invest in Live Oak, JP invested in the internally developed software nCino (Spanish for Live Oak). In 2020, nCino went public with a valuation of $7 billion.

Though JP admits he wasn’t an expert on the software, he knew he was in good company and trusted the people around him who had helped him expand his career. JP’s instincts had served him well when considering his major investments and the right people to bet on.

“Being exposed to all those guys in North Carolina was the education of a lifetime,” says JP. “You get injected with the entrepreneurial spirit. I could have gone to Harvard to get an MBA and it would have paled in comparison.”

“It’s been the journey of a lifetime.”

He always returns to good habits, discipline and his faith. The habits that JP formed in his twenties propelled him when he was 35 and continue to be at the heart of his success. The compounded force and everyday discipline of those habits has had an enormous effect on the trajectory of his career.