2026 Banker of the Year: Corey Chambas

First Business Bank’s Corey Chambas devotes career to people-oriented bankingCorey Chambas was an executive lender with regional powerhouse M&I Bank in 1993, managing a loan portfolio with more than $100 million in it. Yielding to the persuasion of First Business Bank founder Jerry Smith, Chambas left M&I that year to join Smith’s staff of 18 people at the 3-year-old, $50 million bank. In what could only be politely called a lateral move, the job switch ended up being one of the best decisions Chambas has ever made, as today he prepares to retire as CEO of the bank and its holding company, First Business Financial Services, both based in Madison, Wis..Chambas, whose career blossomed at First Business, executed on Smith’s unique business plan for a “business” bank, helped take the company public in 2005, became CEO in 2006, grew the company to $4 billion in assets, and now plans to retire this May, is being recognized as BankBeat magazine’s “Banker of the Year” for 2026.Chambas met Smith in the early 1990s through a mutual friend who shared an interest in fishing. Chambas recalled Smith as a “down to earth” guy, willing to share his trailer and fishing pier. Ironically, Smith and Chambas were chasing down the same lucrative loan prospect and Chambas ended up landing the deal for M&I. Chambas said Smith cut off access to his fishing spot after that. Soon, Chambas and Smith found themselves competing on another deal and Chambas ended up winning that one, too. “At that point,” Chambas explained, “Jerry said: We have to talk.”Smith sold Chambas on the concept of a business bank, a relatively unusual approach to banking that otherwise values extensive branch networks and retail products like mortgages and auto loans. First Business Bank, which didn’t even have a drive-thru, had something else in mind. Chambas was intrigued, but he also considered the impact he could have at a small, growing institution relative to the large bank where he was one of many vice presidents.Relationships are foundational to the business bank concept, which turned out to be a perfect fit for Chambas, who today embraces the tenets of Patrick Lencioni’s “The Ideal Team Player,” which boils down to being humble, hungry and smart.“Corey is a great banker,” summarized Jerry Kilcoyne, chair of First Business Bank and the holding company. Kilcoyne, who is not a banker but the founder of a real estate investment company that started doing business with First Business Bank more than 30 years ago, recalled when Chambas first shared Lencioni’s book with the board of directors in 2018. “He lives it and breathes it, and we have been able to use that as part of our strategic planning for the company. One thing Corey has done, and his predecessor Jerry Smith did as well, is build our culture. Our culture is the most important thing as we grow. It is more important than expertise,” Kilcoyne said. “And Corey lives it. He’s humble, he’s hungry and he’s extremely smart.”.Kilcoyne noted Chambas’ people skills, including his willingness to connect with all of the company’s 360-some employees. Chambas even hand-writes a note to every employee on their birthday.Financial snapshotRelationships drive business. But building relationships is about much more than birthday cards. Without branches, the bank needs to make the most of its customer relationships to win deposits. While the bank utilized advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and other sources to fund some of its loans, it still chiefly relies on core deposits. While banks are typically more focused on loans than deposits, Chambas said First Business Bank has “always been more focused on deposits than loans” and that the bank’s compensation structure rewards employees for bringing in deposits.“We have outbound-calling Treasury Management people who have the same kind of sales goals as our lenders do,” Chambas explained. Today, 73 percent of the bank’s total funding needs are met with core deposits.A good portion of those deposits come with the full-service business relationships the bank cultivates, but they also come from nonprofit customers who only have a deposit relationship with the bank. And those customers don’t concede anything on safety or rate.“We’ve always had the philosophy that because of our branchless model, we should have a lower-cost operation,” Chambas said. “Therefore, we can be more competitive on loan and deposit rates.” He said the bank pays rates that put it in the upper quartile of its peer group. “We’ve always tried to pay up,” he said.And First Business Bank has offered deposit insurance beyond FDIC levels for a long time — well before it became fashionable with the run on Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. In fact, First Business Bank benefited from a “flight to quality” that year when its deposits grew by 17 percent. So relationship banking is about much more than “talk,” translating at First Business Bank into higher interest rates on deposits and more options for protecting those deposits..Unique business modelNot everyone understood First Business Bank’s value proposition, especially in the immediate years after it went public in 2005, when the bank had only about $700 million in assets. The move was driven by growth in the number of shareholders. About to cross the threshold of 500 shareholders, SEC rules required the bank to register as a public company even if it was not doing an offering or capital raise. Chambas said going public was preferable to a reverse stock split or other maneuvers to reduce the number of shareholders. He said many of the shareholders were part of the initial group who capitalized the bank. As those shares were gifted to subsequent generations, the number of owners grew.Because First Business Bank didn’t go public to raise capital, the move did not immediately result in a notable increase in trading of the company’s stock. That didn’t happen until a few years later when the bank went back to the markets to raise $25 million. Several institutional investors bought in and today about 65 percent of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Chambas said that has been a boon for stockholders, who now have the benefit of research coverage and price discovery.It took institutional investors time to understand the value of First Business Bank’s approach. “We would be at investor conferences and analysts would go through our slide deck. We didn’t have a slide showing the location of all our branches, because we didn’t have any. ‘Where is the map with all the dots?’ they would ask. We would have to explain the advantages of operating without branches,” Chambas said.Furthermore, Chambas said they had to explain the bank’s approach to asset/liability management. While most banks attempt to leverage the yield curve, First Business Bank has long embraced a match funding strategy to securities investing. “The Fed can’t predict interest rates,” Chambas commented, referring to the famous “dot plot” at the Fed which hardly ever matches reality. “So why do we think we can predict interest rates?”Going back to founder Jerry Smith, Chambas said the bank has always “used match funding to fund longer-term fixed-rate loans.” Chambas said in the early days of talking to industry analysts, many scratched their heads when he explained their strategy. “I had a lot of people tell me we were doing it wrong,” Chambas said. “‘You should be playing the curve,’ they would say. ‘You should be funding short, lending long. It’s almost always an upward-sloping yield curve; you are giving up spread.’“And we would say, for now we’re giving up spread but we don’t want to take interest rate risk. We don’t have to take that risk to get the margin we need to get the returns we need to satisfy our shareholders.“For quite a while, people told us we were doing it wrong, but not so much over the last couple of years when our margin went up when rates went up and didn’t come down like it did at other banks, as they started getting squeezed. Even the three- or five-year fixed-rate loans that they did, if you’re funding those with money market accounts that went from 1 percent to 4 percent, suddenly, you’re upside down, as we saw banks that had negative interest rate margins.“Where rates went up and banks got caught flat footed, a little bit like the S&L crisis back in the olden days, we didn’t. That’s part of our strategy ... Every bank I know has an AOCI problem or did, that they’ve pretty much now worked through.”Dave Seiler, First Business Bank president and chief operating officer, is set to add the title CEO when Chambas retires on May 2. The two have worked together for years. Seiler commented that Chambas’s conviction about the neutral balance sheet approach is a defining strength. He “sticks to his principles when everyone — five, six, seven years ago — was telling us we were wrong. He really stuck to his guns on this and you know when rates went up, we did very, very well. We did just as well as we did when rates were down and people really struggled because their margins were compressed.”Equally contrarian to the bank’s asset/liability management approach is its emphasis on organic growth. Chambas and team are focused on growing core business lines, which include business banking, private wealth management, bank consulting services (including A/L management), asset-based lending, accounts receivables financing, CRE lending, C&I lending, equipment financing, SBA loans and floorplan finance.Some of that business (such as CRE lending and its C&I portfolio) is limited by the geographic reach of its three Wisconsin (Madison, Appleton and Brookfield) offices and its Kansas City location, but other lines, such as asset-based lending, accounts receivables financing, equipment financing and floorplan finance is conducted across the country. Many First Business Bank employees work remotely, a practice the bank embraced well before covid. All relationship- based businesses, the results are notable: During the last five years, the bank’s loan growth has averaged 13 percent annually; deposit growth has averaged 12 percent annually. The average deposit relationship is 10 years old, and Q3-25 return on assets came in at 1.3 percent.“We’re doubling every seven years, and that’s pretty good. Since we can achieve 10 percent-plus organic growth every year, why do an acquisition?” Chambas asked. “Why dilute your shareholders and give some of that benefit to what we think is a really good franchise to someone else? Let’s keep it for ourselves, with our existing shareholders.”The KC exceptionFirst Business Bank acquired the $223 million Alterra Bank in Kansas City, Mo., in 2014. The opportunity was brought to Chambas’s attention by an investment banker who described the target as a bank that “looks like you but is smaller.” It was a recently-purchased troubled bank that the owners were in the process of converting to a business bank model, having jettisoned one branch and preparing to close another.Chambas said First Business Bank was attracted to the KC metro as a strong commercial banking market, and since Alterra was focused on business banking it seemed aligned with First Business Bank. Plus, it had a strong SBA business, which would be a new business line for First Business Bank that would complement its existing services.“So they are doing commercial C&I lending, and commercial real estate lending, and treasury management in the greater Kansas City market,” Chambas explained. “The market was appealing to us because if you look at the business demographics, it looks a lot like the Madison market only it’s the size of the Milwaukee market.”Chambas called the KC acquisition unique and while he said they would consider doing another such deal, he described it as “hitting the bull’s eye of a bull’s eye.” The opportunity would need to be another business bank that does not have a branch network.So while the bank is relying on organic growth, Chambas noted growth is important beyond its benefits to investors. “If you are growing organically, that means you are bringing in new clients, you’re winning deals, you are winning in the marketplace. People want to be on a winning team, and consequently, people stay. Consequently, people want to join your team.”Furthermore, Chambas said, growth creates opportunities for employees. “You don’t have to leave to get the opportunity you want,” he said, citing three employees who started working years ago in the bank’s Madison lobby and have advanced to become leaders in the company. “If we weren’t growing, those three would have been long gone,” Chambas said. Noting that one of them just celebrated 30 years with the bank, he said he just congratulated the other two on 25 years of service.Strategic PlanThe bank operates on a five-year strategic plan, the current one largely crafted by Seiler, a former BMO Harris correspondent banker who has been with First Business Bank since 2016. The plan, created in 2024, offers seven key metrics, including a “net promoter score,” which is a measure of the bank’s popularity with its market. Surveying hundreds of customers, the bank simply asks: “On a scale of one to 10, how likely would you be to recommend First Business Bank?” People who rate the bank nine or 10 are considered company “promoters;” anything below six is considered a “detracter.” The bank’s net promoter score is about three times better than most banks yet, in addition to financial goals, the bank aspires to a higher net promoter score.Other measures are more traditional: Tangible book value growth goal of 10 percent or more per year (15.6 percent in Q3-25), revenue growth of 10 percent or more per year (12.3 percent in Q3-25), and efficiency ratio of 60 percent or lower (59.51 percent in Q3-25). The bank has a goal of core deposits making up 75 percent or more of its total funding (it was at 71 percent in 2024).Key to growing deposits is growing relationships, and one way the bank has done that is with its annual golf tournaments, one in the Madison area and the other in its Milwaukee market. The point is to raise money for charity and in 15 years, the bank has raised more than $1 million through its golf events.Customers and friends of the bank are invited to pair up, paying a $2,000 entry fee. All of the collected funds go to the charity of choice by the winning pair. The bank pays all the greens fees, food, beverages and other expenses. Chambas said he hears from many of the managers from the recipient charities who attend event receptions to say thank you. Chambas said the various charities do amazing good in the community and as he thinks about his legacy at the bank, one of the things he is most proud of is the golf tournament.Although First Business Bank’s success is largely the result of solid relationships, with customers, shareholders, employees and the community — one of the oldest business strategies around — the bank seems a bit ahead of its time: match-rate funding, branchless banking, a workforce comfortable with remote work.“Yes, 100 percent, we were ahead of our time,” Chambas summarized. “The idea was a great one. It was early,” he said of Smith’s notion of a “business” bank. “It’s hard to be a pioneer because you have to convince everybody of the strategy.” He said they had to tell their story many, many times, and even then, some people doubted.“We were definitely ahead of our time, and people have come around, and that took some time. But as of late, people have come around on the match funding strategy as well. We ran into one guy who owns our stock again after divesting for a long time. He said, ‘I have to apologize. You guys were right.’”Banker of the Year Selections2025 - Mariner Kemper, UMB, Kansas City, Mo.2024 - Bryan Bruns, Lake Central Bank, Annandale, Minn.2023 - Bob Atwell & Mike Daniels, Nicolet Bank, Green Bay, Wis.2022 - Brenda K. Foster, First Western Bank & Trust, Minot, N.D.2021 - Chuck Mueller, Fidelity Bank, Edina, Minn.2020 - Jack Hopkins, CorTrust Bank, Sioux Falls, S.D.2019 - Mary Kay Bates, Bank Midwest, Spirit Lake, Iowa2018 - Larry Ness, First Dakota National Bank, Yankton, S.D.2017 - Jerry Baack, Bridgewater Bank, St. Louis Park, Minn.2016 - Tom Beck, Northeast Bank, Minneapolis.2015 - Donald Regan, Premier Banks, Maplewood, Minn.2014 - Charles Funk, MidWestOne Bank, Iowa City, Iowa2013 - Lou Geistfeld, Citizens Bank Minnesota, New Ulm.2012 - Richard Solberg & Michael Solberg, State Bank & Trust, Fargo.2011 - Stephen J. Goodenow, Bank Midwest, Spirit Lake, Iowa2010 - Larry Albert, John Morrison & Kurt Weise, Central Bank, Stillwater, Minn.2009 - E. David Locke, McFarland State Bank; McFarland, Wis.2008 - Randy L. Newman, Alerus Financial, Grand Forks, N.D.2007 - Steve Wilcox, Grand Rapids State Bank, Grand Rapids, Minn.2006 - Jeff Plagge, First National Bank, Waverly, Iowa2005 - Kenneth Heiser, First National Bank, Hudson, Wis.2004 - Robert Weiss, Beacon Bank, Shorewood, Minn2003 - Josef M. Vich, Community National Bank, Waterloo, Iowa2002 - Warren Williams, Bremer Bank, Brainerd, Minn.2001 - William Reiling, Sunrise Community Banks, St. Paul, Minn.2000 - J. Michael Earley, Bankers Trust, Des Moines, Iowa1999 - Harley Bergmeyer, Saline State Bank, Wilber, Neb.1998 - Catherine Jackson, Citizens State Bank, Waverly, Minn1997 - Leland Stenehjem, Jr., First International Bank & Trust, Watford City, N.D1996 - B. Michael Broderick, Jr,. First American Bank, Canton, S.D.1995 - Mark Hewitt, Northwoods Bank, Park Rapids, Minn.1994 - Myron Pfeifle, Bank Center First, Bismarck, N.D.1993 - David Ballweg, Community State Bank, Union Grove, Wis.1992 - Alan R. Tubbs, Maquoketa State Bank, Maquoketa, Iowa1991 - Leslie H. Olson, Community Trust & Savings Bank, Mitchell, S.D.1990 - Clinton Kurtz, Citizens State Bank, Norwood, Minn.1989 - C.G. Kelly Holthus, First National Bank of York, Neb.