Innovation Breakfast Session

Community bankers are often leaders — but somehow this quality is not so prevalent when it comes to critical areas like technology and innovation within their own institution. Industry veteran Jay Sidhu of Customers Bancorp laments that complacency is killing the community banking sector.

As a young man who grew up in India, Jay Sidhu backpacked across Afghanistan, Iran, and Western Europe with just $100 — managing to make it to London and back to India. He then moved to the United States in 1971 with no money, connections, or friends. Sidhu is now CEO of Customers Bancorp, Inc. and executive chairman of Customers Bank. When he joined Customers in 2009, previously known as New Century Bank, the company was a $250 million asset-troubled bank. Today, it is a high performing bank with over $21 billion in assets providing a range of banking and lending services to small and medium-sized businesses, professionals, individuals, and families.

From 1989 to 2006, Sidhu was the Chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bancorp, Inc and Sovereign Bank, a $90 billion financial institution. During his 20-year career at Sovereign, he grew the organization from an IPO value of $12 million to the 17th largest banking institution in the U.S., with a market cap approaching $12 billion at the end of 2006. Through 2006 Sovereign’s shareholders experienced an interest rate of return of 17% over the last 20 years, outperforming the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average over 5-, 10- and 20-year periods.

Few people on earth have fit more into a life than Don Mann. A former Navy SEAL Team Leader who was twice captured by enemy forces and lived to tell his story, Mann has played a crucial role in some of America’s most daring military missions for more than two decades. Most recently, he trained the SEAL Team Six warriors who assassinated Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

Mann, who’s also a New York Times bestselling author, accomplished endurance athlete and mountaineer and star of the reality TV series Surviving Mann, recently has focused his attention on inspiring others to achieve goals they never imagined they could. As a sought-after motivational speaker around the U.S., Mann addresses a wide range of audiences — from major corporations to universities, to professional sports teams. He takes crowds inside a gripping underworld of risk and courage, while relating tales from the battlefield as well as from grueling suffer-fests like the Hawaii Ironman, which he has completed twice.

His message includes equal doses of inspiration and strategy. As he likes to say, “Anybody with the proper mindset can achieve anything imaginable.” The key, which he relates in his “Reaching Beyond Boundaries” presentation, is to “turn macro goals into micro goals.”

In this special appearance at BankWorld, Don Mann will share his amazing stories and help you see how you can apply his principles to building the best team possible to hit your targets at your bank or credit union.

Mann received a Masters in Management from Troy State University, in Troy, AL, a B.S. in International Relations & Criminal Justice, from Florida State University, in Tallahassee, Fla, and a B.S. in Liberal Science, from State University of New York. He lives in Williamsburg, Va.