I love work that is grounded in community to drive innovation and organizational culture. I enjoy connecting organizations to deeper relationships that humanize and build upon loyalty and trust. I am also deeply committed to transparency and a culture of care to the communities we serve.I am proud to have navigated a $4.3 billion merger agreement in Spanish, one of few transactions I have seen in the U.S. that valued bilingual, bicultural engagement.On the day of the announcement, the most important thing to do, and right thing to do, was to look point blank into CAMERA1 of a morning news camera to reassure our hard working employees that no one would lose their jobs and pensions because of the agreement. Imagine if you woke up one morning and saw your employer announcing the sale of your company. There is such a thing as compassion and dignity of work, and I was determined to commit to our employees, customers, communities and shareholders that this agreement was in the best interest of all stakeholders, and in particular, a path forward to grow our company and drive economic development in our region. This is standing in your commitment. During the pandemic, there are no words to describe the feeling when you fall behind on your bills. I hear it in the voice of our customers who don’t know to do, what is available or how to access it. Committed to doing right for our communities, you have customers in your heart and you find a way. It’s why we empowered our teams to help more than 56,000 customers who were in need with over $8 million in asistance.And knowing the financial need is great, you don’t stop because it’s hard. You build more partnerships and come together. My heart fills every time I tell people about our interfaith communities and local foundation coming together to create a $1 million matching fund. It’s also important to recommit to promises made, so we reassured our region that the company’s $1.2 million in annual giving would remain. In fact, it would generate an economic impact of $2.8 million in investment.There is power in business practices and work cultures that value people first. There can always be a balance between running a healthy organization and bringing customer and community centric leadership.We should protect the health and safety of employees, provide value to customers, stand in our commitment to transparency and engage in community investment as fundamental core values to organizational success.
