2025 Convention Speakers

Chris Kelley – Emcee

Mr. Kelley is the Executive Director & President of the Barret School of Banking since 2003. Chris regularly speaks at banking conventions and events across the US. He is a graduate of the Barret Class of 2000, and served as the Alumni Association President. Chris was a Board member prior to becoming the Executive Director. He began his banking career in 1995 in a management trainee position with National Bank of Commerce in Memphis.  His final role was Senior VP in Branch Administration. Prior to starting his banking career, Chris played professional baseball for the Texas Rangers. Chris has an undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Tennessee, where he played baseball, and received his MBA from Christian Brothers University. He was born and raised in Andalusia, Alabama, and moved to Memphis in 1995. He is married with two children. Chris has served for a number of civic organizations in the Memphis area, including board member of Leadership Memphis and the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis.  He has served on the PTA of his children’s schools for more than 10 years. He has been a volunteer youth sports coach for the past 15 years.

Tara Renze
Be Who You Came To Be – Create, Own & Live the Life you Deserve & Desire

In this high-energy, packed with takeaways presentation, you will learn to tap into your emotional and positive intelligence to: Redefine Happiness, Extinguish Burnout, Embrace Change, Eliminate Comparison, Self-Assess to Self-Actualize, Lean into Fear to Take Risks, Achieve Higher Goals, Never Play Small Again, and Elevate Your Success. Finding our purpose, balancing career and home and living a truly fulfilled life are three priorities for professionals. Be Who You Came to Be is a thought-provoking, inspiring, genuine and fresh approach helps professionals unlock and unleash their purposes in life. Tara takes a new and refreshing approach to help you find purpose and be who you came to be. Through personal experience, stories and research she will walk you through a three-step process to "be who they came to be". She combines her 20 years of success in corporate and direct sales along with her role as a wife and mother so she can offer her audience an experience and a message that are sincere, motivating, relatable, and game-changing.

Governor Michelle Bowman, Invited Guest

Michelle W. Bowman took office as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on November 26, 2018, to fill an unexpired term ending January 31, 2020. She was reappointed to the Board on January 23, 2020, and sworn in on January 30, 2020, for a term ending January 31, 2034.

      Prior to her appointment to the Board, Ms. Bowman served as the state bank commissioner of Kansas from January 2017 to November 2018. She also served as vice president of Farmers & Drovers Bank in Kansas from 2010 to 2017.

      In addition to her experience in the banking industry, Ms. Bowman worked in Washington, D.C. for Senator Bob Dole of Kansas from 1995 to 1996 and served as a counsel to the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight between 1997 and 2002. In 2002, Ms. Bowman became director of congressional and intergovernmental affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. From 2003 to 2004, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and policy advisor to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

      Following her time in Washington, D.C., Ms. Bowman led a government and public affairs consultancy based in London before returning to Kansas in 2010.

Jim Reber
Community Bank Moneymakers in 2025

      It looks like Higher for Longer could evolve into Higher for Ever. Monetary policy easing keeps being pushed into later quarters and even years, compared to recent Federal Reserve rate-cutting cycles. Implicit in this is a flat yield curve, which has resulted in some rewriting of the playbook for creating earnings. We will look at the current community bank balance sheet makeup, highlighting where relative value opportunities exist.

Philip Smith
What is the Next Chapter for Your Bank?

Is the banking industry facing a time of greater uncertainty, or does the new Presidential administration bring more certainty?  Are community banks destined to be sold?  Or will there be a new resurgence toward greater independence?  The key job for the CEO in conjunction with the Board of Directors of any financial institution is to decide what is coming next for your organization and to plan for the next chapter of the bank’s life, whatever it is.  This upbeat and informative presentation will cover a wide range of topics, helping CEOs think about the future of the industry as well as the future of their individual banks.  Whether you want to be an active acquirer, want to remain independent and create more stakeholder value, or engage in strategic planning to chart a new course, this presentation will have something for everyone.

Frank Berndt

Bank M&A: Market Update, Key Trends, and Best Practices

While bank M&A activity has been relatively tepid of late, the banking industry is seemingly on the verge of a sizeable consolidation wave over the years ahead. Accordingly, this session will provide an engaging update on the bank M&A landscape including transaction activity, pricing, deal drivers, key trends, and best practices. The discussion should be useful whether from the perspective of potential sellers, would-be acquirers, prospective merger counter-parties and even those intending to remain squarely independent. 

Mike Burke
It’s Not Just Cyber, It’s Social

Most cybersecurity incidents start with some type of social engineering. Mike will cover some trending social engineering tactics used by fraudsters that target financial institutions and their clients. From ACH and New Account Openings to the tried-and-true tactics used for clients' account takeovers.

Patrick Murphy

Backup & Business Continuity: Learn to Maintain the Integrity & Availability of Your Data

Are you following best practices when it comes to your bank’s backup and business continuity? When was the last time you checked? A robust and flexible backup strategy will ensure your examiner is satisfied and your bank stays operational during a range of disruptions, whether it’s a health crisis, a natural disaster, or a ransomware attack. Join us to learn:

David Herndon

The State of Banking in Kansas

David will delve into the current financial landscape of Community Banks in Kansas, highlighting the various challenges they encounter as well as the opportunities that may arise within the banking industry. His discussion will provide an insightful analysis of the factors influencing these banks and the potential pathways for growth and adaptation in a rapidly evolving market. 

Susan Sullivan Kinney

ICBA Update

Susan Sullivan Kinney is the Senior Vice President of Congressional Relations at the Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA), where she plays a key role in advocating for community banks before key members of Congress and banking regulatory agencies. Her areas of focus include regulatory relief, deposit insurance, payments, digital assets, cybersecurity and data privacy.

With over 15 years of experience in advocacy, Susan has worked extensively on financial services issues at both state and federal levels. Before joining ICBA in March 2020, she held various advocacy roles at the American Financial Services Association, most recently serving as Director of Congressional and Political Affairs. In this role, she lobbied on consumer lending issues and managed political operations for the association.