'Work hard, play hard and play to win'
An interview with Paul Lambert, Chicago market president for Bank of America.
Q: What is your professional background?
A: My parent's owned a clothing store in Buffalo, New York, where I grew up. Watching my parents run their own business quickly taught me two things: how to work with people and the value of working hard. Since then, I've always applied these lessons to my professional career.
Upon graduating college, I chose not to continue in the family business but rather started as a manager's assistant with Merrill Lynch in Rochester, New York and then quickly became a financial adviser.
Looking back, this was not only a difficult choice but also it led to incredible rewards as I developed leadership skills and grew as a professional within the company. I am celebrating my 25th anniversary at the bank in January. In December of 2015, I was named the Chicago market president for Bank of America.
Q: What's new at BofA? Are there any changes or improvements in store for customers?
A: Banking has changed - the rise of mobile has impacted customers and created the opportunity for us to sharpen our focus on the needs of our clients - to create a simpler, more dynamic relationship.
The next horizon for us is evolving the brick and mortar experience to help users achieve the things most important to their financial lives at every step of the way.
Quite simply, Bank of America is on a path to revolutionize the banking industry.
Q: What is one major challenge facing the banking industry this year?
A: One of the biggest challenges our industry faces right now is the concern over fiduciary care. Regulators are worried that the standard of care in financial services is not equal across different companies and that the public is unaware of this concern, therefore the need for a uniform standard of service arises.
As new regulation comes into play, financial service providers may need to change their services to adapt to these changes - at Bank of America we're prepared for these changes and we've been working to get out in front of them, enabling us to continue to service our customers with very minimal change.
Q: Do you have a business mantra?
A: I have a few, but the first and most important is: work hard, play hard and play to win. Secondly, I believe in the financial services industry, you have to come in knowing the impact you can make on people's lives. It's essential we all think about the noble side of what we can do as an industry and realize the major impact we can make by helping others understand financial literacy and how they can take care of themselves financially - something we all think about every day -without a lot of extra effort. There's an exhilarating side of banking, but there is a noble side of what we do - we have to be grounded in the purpose of our industry.
Q: Do you have a mentor?
A: John Thiel, the head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, is my mentor.
He is an extremely dedicated worker and a servant leader with a client-centric focus.
He embodies the work hard, play hard and play to win mentality. Our bank is not a top down hierarchy but rather we work together to get the job done, and John does this so effectively every day. He is an inspiration to the type of leader I aspire to be and an excellent mentor in the financial industry.