- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Have you ever met a born leader, someone who naturally takes charge and motivates others to follow their lead?

So much goes into effective leadership that even great leaders spend most of their careers sharpening and refining those leadership skills.

You're about to meet a former Tampa Bay CEO who successfully led this region's largest bank for nearly 20 years, weathering a major recession and a global pandemic, and came out on top.

Next on the Suncoast Business Forum.

- Suncoast Business Forum, brought to you by the financial services firm of Raymond James, offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise, all with a commitment to putting clients' financial well-being first.

More information is available at raymondjames.com.

[music] - Have you heard the story about the bank teller who rose to become bank president?

Well, probably not, because it rarely happens.

Well, nobody told that to Bill Goede when he started his 35 year career with Bank of America as a part-time teller before going into management training.

When he retired from BOA 35 years later, he was president of the bank's Tampa Bay market for an unprecedented 18 years, having grown the bank into the market leader with local deposits of more than $20 billion dollars.

After a successful career like that, you think it would be time for a rest?

Well, not for Bill Goede.

Bill, welcome to the Suncoast Business Forum.

- Geoff, thank you.

Thrilled to be here.

- Bank of America is one of the largest banks in America.

It has more than $2 trillion in deposits.

3,500 branches, and the Tampa Bay market is also substantial.

$20 billion.

More than $20 billion in deposits.

Nearly 100 branches.

How do you take an organization as large as Bank of America and give it a local feel?

- Well, I think that was the big primary role of the job as the local president is to take this big global bank and make it feel local and approachable and be part of the community, be the face of the bank, if you will, and be the person that if there's something that happened or came up, come see me, come talk to me, send me an email, call me and I'll help you.

- With all the economic growth and all the economic development, you, particularly as market president, but even before that, had a hands-on role in the economic growth and vitality of the area.

What was the bank's priorities over that period of time?

What were your priorities?

- From the bank fees?

Although they changed and evolved over the years, they were generally always around affordable housing, jobs, food insecurity.

And then for me, what I always wanted to see was arts and culture.

And so to me, that was as much of an economic driver as any of the other ones.

And so from affordable housing, many people don't realize that Bank of America has a community development corporation, a CDC, where we co-develop affordable housing and projects with, in many cases, the Tampa Housing Authority.

So, Encore, that many people may know was a big project.

We were co-developers of that with them.

We're 50/50 developers.

And that same that same relationship happened for the West River Project, Robles Park.

So from an affordable housing, the bank could support that.

As a developer, as a co-developer of those projects.

- Statistically, the average bank president has a tenure of about six years.

You were market president for Bank of America in the Tampa Bay area for 18 years, three times the average.

What is it about your style, your leadership qualities that allowed you to remain in that position for all that time?

And how do you view leadership skills?

Are there natural born leaders?

- Well, I think the first piece, I love doing it.

I love the job.

I love being the local president.

I love representing the bank and the community.

I love leading the team.

We had at the time 4,000 associates here in Tampa Bay, and I love being part of that organization.

And when I, I think in terms of the skill, I had a great team.

And that was a big part of it is.

And I think from what you tried to do is I always try to make sure that they knew what was going on.

I overcommunicated probably we would bring our community partners together at least once a year just to talk about what's going on, what do I need to know about, what do we need to be aware of at the bank.

So, that is we're looking at our funding priorities for the next year or future years.

What do we need to be thinking about?

Because maybe it's going to look different and we need to start thinking about this.

And where are we going to direct our money and where we start directing our talent?

And, you know, where are our employees going to volunteer?

That was one of the other things we love doing is about being local, is we could take our employees would average 25,000-plus hours a year volunteering.

And, you know, that's them volunteering with local organizations.

They live here, they work here, they're raising their families here.

And now they're volunteering with organizations.

That's always pretty special.

- What is it that you think defines a great leader, business leader, community leader?

And are there such things as natural born leaders?

- I think there are.

There are people who are naturally have a gift that people.

They just draw people to them.

They have a presence about them.

And I think somebody walks in the room, you say when they walk in the room, you just know they have a they have the feel of a leader and they kind of look like that.

So yes, I think there is some natural piece, but I do think people can evolve and become better leaders over time.

And I think when you look at some of the folks that they have a great vision, um, they collaborate, they ask questions.

They're not afraid to fail.

The best leaders, they have a plan, they have a vision.

They communicate that plan very, very well.

And then they just go and execute it.

And maybe it doesn't go the right way.

You know, maybe there's some bumps along the way, but they course correct.

They adjust and they get right back to it.

- Let's talk about your formative years.

Let's talk about growing up.

- I grew up in Bradenton.

We moved.

I was born in Ohio, born in Cleveland, but we moved to Florida when I was four.

Uh, so I grew up in Bradenton; Single mom, my sister, I have one sister whose three years younger than myself.

I got good grades.

It came honestly pretty easy to me through high school.

It was pretty, it was pretty easy.

I played sports; I played soccer through high school.

I joined the golf team in high school because I was living near a golf course.

I grew up near a golf course.

The golf team had three players and they needed a fourth to field a team.

So they figured since I lived close to a golf course, I should be able to play golf.

So I had to get good pretty quickly.

I'm pretty competitive.

So that was that was a good challenge to learn how to play and be good enough to be on the golf team.

So it was, you know, by default, I got on the first year, but I had to stay on it after that.

So it was, it was fun.

So I did that.

I worked my first job.

I was delivering, I delivered papers for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

They had an afternoon paper that was, I guess, my first sales job, really, if you think about it.

And that's kind of how I got into sales and, you know, kind of the sales and marketing piece of it.

And I first, you know, those are my customers.

They were, I would go deliver papers and go collect money.

And it was and then try to sell more.

Yeah.

So I ended up working at the golf course that I grew up near.

And so between which I liked being around people, and to me that was always easy talking to people largely.

At the time I'm in, you know, high school, working at a golf course.

And the members there are older and, you know, so I'm dealing with people, different generations.

And how does that go?

And, you know, and what do you talk about?

And so now you're, you know, trying to, you know, learn what's important and remember everybody's names, you know, so that was if I could remember their names when they were coming up to the course, that was big.

So I guess between those pieces, you started getting that part of, all right, what does this look like and what's the personality?

And for me, that was I always enjoyed being around people.

- After high school, you went to the University of Florida.

Do you have any career goals in mind?

- I went to the university, I thought I was certain I was going to be a civil engineer.

That was what I was going to do.

I was going to be an engineer, went up there, I took calculus, and I was certain at that point I was not going to be a civil engineer.

I knew that was never going to happen.

So I looked at a couple of different things.

I figured, all right, I should probably do something.

I know I want to do something about business-related.

Uh, so I started taking economics and marketing courses and I graduated with a degree in marketing from the University of Florida.

So it was the fastest four and a half years.

I was president of my fraternity when I was at Florida.

So that was kind of my first leadership piece role, if you will.

I met my now wife there at the University of Florida.

We met at, uh, she was her, the social chair of her sorority.

And I was president of the fraternity and we met at a party.

And as I say, the rest is history.

So Lori and I have been married 36 years, and we have two adult sons and two daughters-in-law, two grandchildren, um, our son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren live here in Tampa Bay.

And our son and daughter- in-law live in London.

- After college you went into banking.

How did you choose banking as a career?

- So I wish there was some great story about how I ended up in banking.

But at the time, NCNB North Carolina National Bank was hosting a cocktail reception, and you offer free drinks and food in college.

I'm in and I didn't really think about banking, per se.

I was just looking at getting a job, but I didn't know necessarily what I wanted to do.

I'd interviewed with some companies.

Um, and I wouldn't say I was necessarily, you know, focused on banking.

My interest was getting back to the Bay area, if you will.

And so NCNB was the only job offer I had where it could be out of Tampa.

And so I didn't know much about it.

And so I but because of finishing my role as president of the fraternity that I graduated in December.

But I could not start with the bank until June, so I needed something to do.

And so I. This is where the teller piece comes in as I went down to Sarasota and I said, all right, Bill, I'm going to be in the management associate program.

You know, do you have anything in marketing?

That's my degree.

And do you have maybe anything in HR that I could go do?

And they said, no, we have a part time teller position.

I said, well, again, Bill Goede, I'm going to go into management program.

And, you know, can you know, can you get me something maybe in the marketing I can help you out with for, you know, for six months or so.

And they said, no, we have a part time teller position on Longboat Key.

And I said, all right, I'm in.

I went through teller school.

Um, and, and it's one of those moments that at the time you didn't realize it.

I didn't, I certainly didn't, but it was the best thing I could have ever done is.

So I'm in working at the bank.

I'm a part time teller on Longboat Key.

And you know, to me, the teller job is the hardest job I ever had at the bank.

Um, because you're always on, you are the window to the bank and at the time, you know, think back, you know, to 1988, '89.

There is no online banking.

Your cash is coming in.

Checks are coming in to be cashed.

That's just how it was done.

And so, um, but back to the fact that I like talking to people, I had really long teller lines because I would talk to everybody and I enjoyed it.

And to me, that was fun.

- So after college, you started with NCNB, which ultimately became Bank of America.

- Through mergers and consolidations.

So you've really been with the same bank since you started your career.

So after you got out of the management training program, what happened next?

- So I finished the program and they came to.

So this was 90.

I was done with the management training program.

And at that point you get assigned a branch to open.

And I went, I was down in Bradenton finishing up my training and I was offered a position, uh, in Murdock, so Port Charlotte area.

So NCNB was opening up a financial center in Murdock, and they're like, Bill, we'd like you to go be the manager there and you have to go hire.

It's a brand new location.

We're building it now.

You're going to go hire the team and you know we're going to get this opened in six months.

Now I'm 24 years old.

Maybe I had never hired anybody in my life.

And so the amount of responsibility that NCNB gave me at the age of 24, like you're in charge.

This is your office.

Here are your goals.

You go hire your team up and off you go.

I did that for a couple of years and then was moved up to Sarasota.

We had a program back then that was called the Newcomer and Group Banking Program the bank had.

And so the Newcomer Program, we would work with real estate agents and HR partners at large companies.

So if they were hiring people and bringing them to the area, we would reach out to those folks.

We would help them get a checking account established in the state of Florida.

We would help them if they needed to get a mortgage, we would help the mortgage process.

And again, it was just kind of an interesting way of people because the growth of people coming to Florida in a very different banking model back then.

So it's fun to be a part of that.

And then I was asked to come back to Tampa to run our Westshore office.

And at that time, the Westshore office was on Westshore Boulevard.

We had an office in the Tampa International Airport, and we had one in the urban center, so we had three offices there.

I did that for a while, and then I ran another office.

You kind of go to bigger, you know, if you do well, you go to a bigger branch and with more employees, more deposits, bigger goals.

So I went to a branch up on Florida Avenue, north of Busch Boulevard, and ran that for a while.

And then I moved into an operations manager role with the bank.

Then I moved into a sales manager role all within Tampa.

And so the bank was growing.

And it was an exciting time.

- In late 1997, they actually transferred you out of Florida to the Midwest to be a market executive.

Tell us about.

- That.

Yeah.

So I went up to St.

Louis, and I remember the question was, have you ever been to St.

Louis?

I said, I said, I think that's the city with the arch.

I'm pretty certain of that.

I've never been to the state of Missouri, and I don't know if I've ever been to a state around Missouri.

So no, I'd never been there.

I didn't know anything about it.

We had just acquired Boatmen's Bancshares in Missouri.

And so a lot of activity was happening.

And so there was a group of people who went up there and I went up there to the bank, had a program called in-store banking, and in-store banking would be, we thought you had branches in grocery stores.

And so they said, all right, we want you to come up and run the market in St.

Louis and Kansas City and be responsible for the branches inside Schnucks grocery store.

So which is St.

Louis, Missouri based grocery chain.

And so we had branches inside Schnucks in St.

Louis and Kansas City.

And so I did that.

And then I picked up some of the additional traditional branches in St.

Louis.

Um, all along, why we're trying to integrate the Boatmans acquisition.

- Then in 2000, you were transferred again, this time to Dallas Fort Worth.

Are your responsibilities different this time.

- Responsibilities were the same.

So I, we, I did, you know, with the in-store banking and the traditional banking, uh, de novo centers in St.

Louis.

And I was asked to do the same thing, uh, in Dallas, Fort Worth.

So I went down there and then I thought, all right, I've done consumer banking for a lot of years.

I need to do something else.

And so, um, they came and said, would you like to lead our small business banking team, uh, here in the market?

Did that, grew the team?

Um, it was exciting.

It was fun.

And, uh, then they asked me to go do the exact same thing down in Houston.

Houston.

I got down there, you know, not long after that, Enron was happening, so I went.

The Enron's headquarters was right down the street from the Bank of America headquarters.

And, you know, you come that day and you can just see a parade of people being exited out of the building.

And, you know, that image is like, wow.

And 9/11 happens.

And I was on the phone with our special assets manager for, you know, talking about loans that were not going the way they were supposed to go.

Um, and we're both talking and all of a sudden the news flow starts coming through that something happened, but it was, it was, it was great.

And again, I love Texas.

I was doing some agriculture lending work.

I was still in the business banking space doing ag lending, doing some work in Midland, Odessa.

And, uh, it was, it was, it was, it was skills that I had never had.

That was, it was completely new to me.

I didn't know anything about ag and oil and gas and, but I had to learn.

- In 2003, you were transferred back to the Tampa Bay area, this time specifically to work in the Hillsborough County market, not Tampa Bay.

Hillsborough County in business banking.

- Back then, you think back, Hillsborough County was Hillsborough County.

Pinellas County had its own kind of structure and president.

Then we had the Suncoast, which was Pasco Hernando and Citrus County, and operate as three completely different markets.

And then the Pinellas County president retired.

And so I was asked to take on Pinellas County as well.

And so I had Hillsborough and Pinellas, and that was great.

But then the Suncoast president retired, and they asked if I would pick up Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus County as well.

And so what we had then what became the Tampa Bay president was really more like what we would call Tampa Bay today.

And so that was the market we still have.

- Early in your tenure as Tampa Bay market president, the real estate market imploded.

We're talking about 2006, 2007.

By 2008, the financial system started to come apart.

And here you are, Tampa Bay market president and Tampa Bay market.

And Florida was hit very hard.

- Yeah, that was, you know, for those that were here, they remember it.

Everything just froze.

Everything stopped.

And that was a tough time.

And it was a hard time to be a big bank.

Uh, TARP was happening.

There was a lot of, um, the big banks were, you know, kind of the ire of a lot of people and no one really wanted.

Why do I want a bank in a big bank?

You have TARP money.

We bailed you out.

And, and but again, it goes back to that whole piece of getting engaged in the community.

It's like, okay, I understand, you know, I understand the frustration.

Uh, here it is.

But let me tell you what we're doing.

And let me tell you what, what's happening as a result and what we're doing back in the community and how do you give back in the community.

And we never and I was always very proud of the bank that Neighborhood Builders at the time when I when I retired, we celebrated 20 years of our neighborhood builder program, we never stopped supporting nonprofit organizations.

And those nonprofit organizations would each get a $200,000 unrestricted grant to use for operational purposes.

And so we never stopped.

- Tampa Bay and Florida recovered from the Great Recession.

And you had some really great years as the market president for Tampa Bay.

But then, in 2020, pandemic hit.

Tell us about that.

- At that time, nobody really knew what to expect.

You know, I, I thought I'd be home for two weeks.

It was challenging.

It was.

I remember, you know, my wife was, you know, I'm working from home.

My wife's in the other office.

And she would just hear people yelling at me and saying awful things.

And I never, never took it personally.

They were under a significant amount of stress.

I mean, they were trying to figure out how are they going to make payroll for their five person, 50 person, 250 person, thousand person company?

What are they going to do?

This could be this.

They might be third generation owner of this business.

And they have no idea what's going to happen.

And they're responsible for all those families that are on the payroll.

And so it was hard.

And so we tried to do things, try to do as much as you could virtually get, you know, talking to clients, talking to employees.

- Tampa Bay came through COVID actually getting stronger.

The economy picked up substantially.

So as a bank president must have really been an interesting mixed blessing, if you will.

- If you're told you can work anywhere you want to work.

Tampa was on...Tampa Bay was on a lot of people's radars.

If I can go work anywhere, why not go to Florida?

Why not go to Tampa Bay and work?

And so you had growth happening.

And so you could just see this.

Everything accelerated.

And it is a mixed blessing because all of a sudden, you know, that has implications on traffic.

It has implications on housing.

There's a there's a lot of pieces that come with that.

But ultimately, the Bay area grew at a rapid pace.

And, you know, and with it came companies and companies, you know, were relocating here because, you know, Florida was one of the states that opened up sooner than others.

And so it became this was this was a destination for many people that it was all right.

This is a this is a good option for us to continue on.

And so we were the beneficiaries of that.

It was, you know, and largely it was it was just, you know, constant growth.

What was the numbers?

1000 people a day at one point were relocating to Florida.

- So Florida recovered from COVID.

The Tampa Bay market was doing well.

The bank was doing well.

You decided to make a personal decision that would become a career changing decision for the better.

- I did.

So I would, I'd been, I had the privilege of serving on the University of Tampa, now University of Tampa's board for a dozen years.

I was on the board for... and as a trustee, one of the things was coming up was you.

Tampa was starting a DBA program.

They were starting a doctorate program, and they were looking for potentially some trustees to be in the in the first program.

And I was very intrigued.

One, because it was a it was the first one.

I liked the idea of being in an inaugural cohort.

I started about that time thinking what would life looked like post-banking?

You know what could that be?

And teaching... I love, I just for whatever reason, that just seemed to strike a chord with me.

I was excited about that opportunity.

- So you graduated from the Doctor of Business Administration program at the University of Tampa, and what you knew, having gone through the program and been a bank president for 18 years and worked at a bank in banking for three plus decades, would be a goldmine for students.

How did you end up putting that to use?

- Geoff.

I'm a lucky guy.

I really am.

I've been I've been blessed in so many ways.

The time to retire was coming because I needed to do that, because I was never going to be able to finish my dissertation.

I didn't want to go through all the coursework and not complete the research and do the dissertation.

So I knew I had to do that.

So I retired, finished the dissertation, graduated, uh, USF called and said, "Would you like to be a faculty member here?"

And I said, "Absolutely, yes!"

That's what I'd like to do, you know.

And do you want to be part time or full time?

I said, "I don't, I don't know."

I, you know, I worked a long time.

I haven't really thought much about the part time, full time piece.

But, you know, I think I would like teaching.

I think I'll be okay at it, but I don't know, you know, maybe I don't know, part time.

I'm not sure.

And they said, well, how about if you do full time?

Because we have another idea that we're doing here at USF.

And so we're going to launch the center for Executive and Leadership Education.

And we'd like you to be our business development director.

And I said, well, what does that entail?

And, uh, it was, you know, going out and I spent, you know, all my time at the bank, uh, working with companies about, you know, how do I, you know, teaching them and working with them to invest in their company?

How are they growing their company, investing in capital, investing in inventory, equipment, facilities, you know, whatever that is.

Uh, and the Center for Executive Leadership and Education, what I get to do is I get to talk to those same companies about investing in their people, and it's a lot of fun.

So I got very lucky because I get to teach, which is what I want to do.

So I teach organizational change and development in the graduate program, and then I get to do business development for the Center of Executive and Leadership Education and work with companies about providing training for their senior managers, their C-suite, emerging talent, top talent, and helping them design programs that meet their unique needs for their company.

And it's fantastic.

So I still get to stay involved in the community, but I still get to do what I wanted to do, which was teach and try to, you know, being around smart people, there's something invigorating about that.

And it's, you know, these students, they, they're, they, they're going through getting their master's for whatever their reason, their particular reason is, but they're very excited about it and they're eager to learn.

And if I can help in any small way, that's a win.

And so I see people and they're like, you look so happy.

And it's like...I am.

This is a lot of fun.

I'm getting to do what I always thought I wanted to do, and that doesn't always work out that way.

So I've been very lucky.

- Bill, I'd like to thank you for being our guest today on the Suncoast Business Forum.

- Geoff, it's been great.

Thank you for having me.

- Thank you.

- If you'd like to see this program again or any of the CEO profiles in our Suncoast Business Forum archive, you can find them on the web at wedu.org/sbf.

Thanks for joining us for the Suncoast Business Forum.

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