UBB director gets behind the curtain as interim president/CEO

Faced with an unanticipated vacancy at the top of its org chart in late 2024, United Bankers’ Bank Board Chair Jae Evans stepped up to become UBB’s interim president/CEO, with encouragement from the full board. At the time, Evans was nearing the end of his two-year term as chair; earlier that year, he had retired as president/CEO of Isabella Bank in Mount Pleasant, Mich..Evans said he was honored to be asked to lead as the board sought to replace Dwight Larsen. In the months that followed, Evans said he gained the following insights on UBB: “UBB has always had a solid offering of products and services that are competitive with the other bankers’ banks in the industry. We all don’t do the same things. We have strengths and we have weaknesses. But one of the things that you don’t often get to see as merely a board member is under the covers, so to speak.“By serving in that interim role, that gave me an opportunity to really do that, spend some time with people whom I didn’t get to spend some time with as a board member, just interact with them in a different way, more frequently, and really see the quality and the strength of the individuals that we have in the organization.“From that standpoint, that was really enlightening. I had a feeling that we had a strong group to begin with but when you don’t get to interact with them, it’s a little tougher.“During that time, I started a process at board meetings where we would invite individuals from departments to come in and present to the board on a periodic basis what their departments are doing, what their specialties are. That way board members could actually interact and see and hear from other individuals besides just the typical process, which was the supervisor or the team lead.“I think it has helped other board members expand their relationships and see some of the strengths I got to see during that interim process.