The Ranked List

How the list gets built

Who is on it, and in what order.

The market map decides which banks are worth recruiting out of. The modeling meeting decides which people inside them fit your seat, and how well. Put one against the other and you have the order. It is arithmetic, not our taste.

We ask the eighteen open. No multiple choice, no form to fill in, because putting the options in front of you anchors the answer to ours. The replies that do not fit our boxes are usually the most useful thing we take out of the room, and they are the reason two banks the same size in the same market get different lists.

Which is also why the list is worth reading rather than approving. If a name near the top looks wrong to you, either we modeled the seat wrong or you know something the filings do not. Both are worth finding out before the calls start rather than after.

One candidate modeling meeting. Eighteen questions.

After the contract is signed, before anyone is called. Eight of the things those questions settle:

Why the seat is open: Growth and backfill are two different searches. It is also where churn surfaces. Nobody volunteers that a seat has turned over three times.
What your credit shop will approve: The box, the authority, and how long a banker waits for an answer. It is the thing people leave over, so we need yours before we can say who would come.
What the person is actually called: The same banker is a Commercial Lender at one bank and a VP Commercial Banking at another. Titles are how anyone gets found.
Whether the book follows: Your answer changes which banks are worth recruiting out of, and how far away a person can reasonably live.
Specialty or generalist: Most community lenders call on a $2M contractor and a $40M manufacturer in the same week. Forcing a specialty onto that seat drops exactly the right people.
How seasoned, and how far out: The experience band, and the geography for the person, which is almost never the same as the geography for the bank.
What you can actually pay: Base, incentive, and anything deferred. The most disqualifying number in the search, and the one most often left until it is too late.
Who is off limits: The banks we will not approach, and the names you have already called yourself. Both of them before we build the list, rather than after you have read it.

Sample · invented people and institutions

A ranked list, as delivered.

Every name and every bank below is made up. On a real list, the reason to leave is computed from that bank’s own filings and the reason to join is computed from yours. Neither is an opinion we are asking you to take on trust.

#	Banker	Time	Why they would leave	Why you instead
1	Dale WhitfieldSVP Commercial Banking Lookout Valley Bank & Trust	19 years in banking. 6 in the seat.	His bank is at 311% CRE. The deals he sources are being declined by his own credit shop.	You are at 148% with a lending limit more than twice his. His pipeline becomes bankable the day he moves.
2	Priya RamanVP Commercial Relationship Manager Tennessee River Financial	11 years in banking. 3 in the seat.	Fourteen months into an acquisition. Her territory was redrawn and her credit officer changed twice.	One credit officer, no reorganization, and the same person approving her deals next year.
3	Marcus BellCommercial Lender Signal Mountain Community Bank	14 years in banking. 5 in the seat.	A $6M house limit. His three largest relationships have outgrown the bank.	Your limit holds his existing book without participations.
4	Annette CordovaSVP, Commercial Team Lead Ridgeline Bank	21 years in banking. 8 in the seat.	Deposits down 4.3%. Funding pressure is reaching her as pricing she cannot win with.	A 74% loan-to-deposit ratio and almost no brokered funding. She can price again.
5	Jonah ReyesCommercial Banking Officer First Sequatchie National	9 years in banking. 4 in the seat.	President retiring in eighteen months, no named successor, and he is not in the conversation.	A market you are building rather than one you are handing over.
6	Carol NwosuVP Commercial Lending Tennessee River Financial	16 years in banking. 2 in the seat.	Second acquisition in six years. She has been through the integration playbook already.	Owner-operated, no acquisition on the table, and the president takes her call.
7	Ted HalloranCommercial Lender Lookout Valley Bank & Trust	12 years in banking. 7 in the seat.	Same CRE ceiling as Whitfield, one level down, and no line of sight past him.	A seat with its own market rather than a queue behind a team lead.
8	Simone VaughnPortfolio Manager, Commercial Ridgeline Bank	7 years in banking. 3 in the seat.	Credit-trained and ready for the front line, but the bank has no opening to give her.	The seat you are hiring is the step she has been waiting two years for.

A real list runs to twenty names, topped back up from the ranked bench as you strike people off, and it never re-offers someone you have already rejected. What it never carries is contact details. Those stay with us until you have approved the name.

Why we show you

A list you cannot see is a list you cannot correct.

You know things we cannot

Who already turned you down, whose brother-in-law sits on your board, who left your bank badly nine years ago. One read of the list catches all of it.

It makes the search checkable

You can see the market we are actually working rather than a shortlist arriving from nowhere with no way to judge what was skipped.

Nobody gets called by accident

No approach goes out to a name you have struck off. On a market this size that matters more than it sounds.

Want to see yours?

Tell us the bank and the market and we will come back within one business day.