Interview with Todd Rowley - Market Executive for Old Dominion National Bank

Todd Rowley explains how trust is not given, it is earned and maintained.

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Guest - Todd Rowley
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Transcript

Carl Grant: 0:05

Welcome to rainmakers. I'm here with Todd, rally, market executive for dominion, National Bank for the capital region. Welcome, Todd.

Todd Rowley: 0:14

Hey, Carl, how you doing?

Carl Grant: 0:16

So Todd, I've known you a long time. And I've known you in your various various banking roles. I've known you as a banker the entire time I've known you. You've always known you wanted to do this, haven't you?

Todd Rowley: 0:27

doing doing this podcast?

Carl Grant: 0:29

Or no, no, no banking, banking. I look, I look back at your who studies banking in college like you You studied actually, how to do this in graduate school, didn't you?

Todd Rowley: 0:40

I did. I got a graduate degree from University of Delaware and banking. So yeah, and then followed up with a general MBA from Virginia Tech. But yeah, I, I have, I've been classically trained.

Carl Grant: 0:54

Yeah, but the other thing I think about you is, is banking is the way you earn a living. That's not that's not all you do. You do lots of other stuff. You're a very community minded guy, and talk, talk to me about how that plays into what you do professionally?

Todd Rowley: 1:12

Well, I think it's both a professional vocation, as well as a kind of a personal advocation is that that's a good way to describe it. I think, one, if you do it correctly, feeds the other and supports the other and keeps you a fairly balanced individual and, and hopefully productive in the community to which you live in work.

Carl Grant: 1:38

Yeah, and I imagine the banking industry, you have to me, you have to engender a lot of trust in people, right? Because you're dealing with their their money, their resources, their businesses. How do you how do you go about developing that kind of type of trusted relationship?

Todd Rowley: 1:56

Well, I think you as, as often I know that, you know, this from our long relationship is that you, you know, you're not given trust, you earn trust, and you maintain trust. And a lot of times you be you, you get that trust from the opportunity that you have to work together. And sometimes it's not business, it's it's other, or organizations or other initiatives that you have the opportunity to get put together to work on. And from from there. You You split up the responsibilities, and everybody's responsible for their portion and the ability for them to complete that successfully and contribute to the success of the whole builds builds a layer of trust. Is that fair?

Carl Grant: 2:50

Yeah. And so when I was still living in the Northern Virginia area, and pre COVID, when people did normal things, like have lunch, we're doing that again, here in Texas, but I'm not sure about another Genie, you. And I had a standing monthly lunch meeting. And so I don't know, how much you replicate that type of activity across your network? Or was I special?

Todd Rowley: 3:14

You're always special, Carl. I have a circle of good relationships. And I do miss our get togethers because they were they were enlightening. And they certainly lead to good outcomes. But I think there's there's a group of individuals, probably maybe two to three dozen individuals that I tried to stay in contact with. Not not necessarily because they are clients or that there's a business opportunity. It's because they give me a perspective on what is going on in the region, what's going on in the metropolitan area, what's going on the state what's going on nation, and often there's something that I'm doing, or something I've been introduced to that that leads to a piece that will solve their problem. And I think that's when I could when I can make that happen. That's a good day.

Carl Grant: 4:15

Yeah, and I don't recall, you know, having lunch with you, and and it'd be unnecessarily about bizdev, or sharing leads. Yeah, we did some of that. Naturally, it's just natural to do that. But it was more about, you know, catching up learning about what your kids are doing and what's going on in your life other than work and stuff like that. Is that something that you have a practice in doing? Or is that I don't know what what is unique about our relationship versus your other business relationships?

Unknown: 4:44

Well, and I think it's just that very fact that if something came out, that was, you know, having to relate to one of our respective business sides. It was it was almost tertiary or even down the list from there. It was You know, the I think the the benefit of being in a region is to contribute in ways that are beyond your business. Because, yeah, I think most individuals and yourself included, you know, kind of the business side is what you do, but it's not who you are. So being involved in my case with the board of the community college cheering at one time, the board of the community college, the workforce board, the initiative go Virginia, which is a economic statewide economic initiative, the chamber and and others, that really allowed me to give back in ways that that wasn't my day job.

Carl Grant: 5:50

Well, another thing that you did that was really unique amongst my network, and I, by looking at your LinkedIn profile, I'd say you're likely four years older than me, we don't have to give ages here. So what to say is you're not you're not a kid, right. And, and you, you while you were chairing the Northern Virginia Community College, you actually went back and learned how to deal with computer programming, which is unbelievable, because most young people can't learn how to computer program. So talk to me about what you're thinking, and how that benefited you and what you got out of it.

Todd Rowley: 6:26

Well, that that is probably a unique circumstance, but hopefully one that others will emulate because when I first got asked to be on the board of directors of Northern Virginia Community College, and for those that, that are not familiar with what we call Nova, they're one of the largest community colleges United States, there's probably 85 to 90,000 students, split between most in academics, but also there's workforce and skill sets, and certifications. And when I got on the board, I felt the only way that I could truly be a contributing board member is if I went back and actually was a student. And as you say, I've got I've got two graduate degrees, one from the University of Delaware, the other is my MBA in finance from Tech at Virginia Tech. But Virginia Tech is is a concentration I say in finance with a with a sub concentration operations research and Management Science. And that really is my day job. But I like I like to be a K through grade eight grade learner. I like to be a lifetime learner. So I think I've always been to hate

Carl Grant: 7:43

K through gray. I've never heard that before. Is that? Is that an educational term?

Todd Rowley: 7:48

One that I? It's one I use, and I haven't copyrighted so anyway.

Carl Grant: 7:52

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Todd Rowley: 7:53

Yeah, I but I think a K through gray learner is is somebody who always wants to be taking a class in something. And I think at some point, it's great to take courses that are not in your day job at some point. And so that just expands your, your your sphere of knowledge, but it also, I think, gives you a better perspective on on the universe around us. So at that time, I've always been someone who has an IT technology. interest, and nobody had classes in that time it was coding and it general it. And so I started out taking pseudocode, Java, Python, Linux, Unix, HTML five, using CSS. And and with that, got a very good understanding of the ability for people who do not have an engineering or advanced mathematics, that these are skills and these are jobs that individuals can can achieve and certifications that individuals can achieve. And it really has been interesting. I finished my first Nova degree in it a couple years ago, I've just completed my second degree. In cloud computing on AWS certified, I've taken the certifications tests, and I do have AWS certification. And while I was doing that, I was taking cybersecurity classes, I actually have four classes away from finishing my third degree, and that would be in cybersecurity from Nova. So it's been interesting because as you say, I I do not fit the general age or economic background of students. But it shows that people that that have an interest can take on these skills and actually there's jobs out there for you.

Carl Grant: 10:00

Yeah, well, I imagine with your client base, which is largely in the, you know, the tech community and cyber companies, I mentioned that gives you some street cred. I mean, how many guys, you know, that are on in yours can say they programming Python? I mean, that, to me, that's amazing, right? I wish I could say that.

Todd Rowley: 10:21

Well, it's and you can, you're just one or two classmates from being able to say you can, but you're right. I, a number of my clients are it because we're in the Northern Virginia area, our government contracting it, and cybersecurity. And, you know, the classes I took previously, and in fact, the last class I just just finished in the spring semester, was a class in the dark web, and with, with what's going on, in the news on a continual basis, with cybersecurity hacks, you know, ethical hacking, dark web. forensics, are these are classes, I've taken it and it allows me to have a much better understanding of what my clients and and, and what their customers are anticipating, and what this what the skill sets that are needed to fulfill those those kind of roles. So it's been it's been personally and professionally rewarding to do these classes. And Nova is a great in the best environment to do it, because community colleges are so underrated and still available.

Carl Grant: 11:36

So as it directly or indirectly lead to new business for you.

Todd Rowley: 11:40

It has, I think, anyone can go into a room and start talking about what it is that your company does. In my case, you know, I'm, I'm a career banker, and I can go into a room and start talking about banking. But so can a dozen other bankers, Madonna, other banks, you know, you know, your my lines of credit don't work any differently, a ch jch, commercial credit card and checking account are the same, no matter what the logo is. And I think if if you have a sincere ability to have a discussion about what the customer does, from not only their perspective, but also from your experiences, it just, it just makes you a different, in my case, a different banker, or if the same thing for accountants or, or attorneys or or anybody out there, not trying to sell. But to really to do have to be a better partner to the company, because I know what they're talking about. I have I've written in those codes. I have created virtual machines on an AWS platform, I've created the the subnets. I've created the, you know, the load balancers on a virtual machine. I've created the databases and the backup databases on in my classes. As I tell people I say I write the papers, I take the tests. And it gives me the ability to have a conversation with the cxos of a company beyond their balance sheet and income statement. is that fair?

Carl Grant: 13:29

That's amazing. Todd. Yeah. So in my world, run a venture capital. Most of the venture capitals I deal with have a Harvard Business School degree. And two years ago, I went back and got a got a certificate from from Harvard Business School. So I can say I also learned from Josh Lerner. So he's the guy who teaches venture capital there. So I, I'm kind of practicing and not not to the extent that you are. So Todd is we come up on the 15 minute point here. I want to know what advice you have for the young people out there and you probably get this all the time be in the chair round a lot of young people. What advice do you have to someone who says man that that tide rally sounds like a great guy, I love what he does. I want to be like him, what would you have them to do now?

Todd Rowley: 14:13

Well, I think one of the things is look around, find organizations that you have a personal interest in and and get involved and become someone who is is an active contributor. What I what I often say to for not for profits in the region is that not always Can you write a check, but I always can can show up and help and I think a lot of times that is beneficial and maybe sometimes more beneficial to a to a not for profit. And what that helps to teach young people it in a time when you're trying to get some type of job experience and sometimes you can get an internship but sometimes you can't. But working for not for profits working for regional organizations gives you solid business experience as well as it's good karma. I think you're getting involved with those, those kind of activities. And if someone doesn't know how to they're they're a business persons there are counties and cities that have economic development authorities and economic development Commission's and there's, there's there's tons of ways to find out the organizations in a region that you can contribute. I think, you know, one of the things that I've been blessed with is that, you know, working on homeless working on workforce working on education gives me personal satisfaction and in addition to good context and good context in the market that I work.

Carl Grant: 15:59

Todd rally great advice, Old Dominion National Bank. Thanks for joining us.

Todd Rowley: 16:03

Thank you, Carl. It's been a pleasure.

Carl Grant: 16:05

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