Stuart Lubow, CEO of Dime Community Bank | CEOs You Should Know

Well, thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Well, you know, I joined the bank in 2017, and my goal at that point and my responsibility was really to turn the bank into a vibrant relationship commercial bank. Prior to that, Dime had been a kind of a sleepy thrift savings bank. I joined the bank to turn it into a commercial bank. We really brought on a whole new team and a whole new philosophy of relationship and community banking. So it's been exciting.

Well, you know, it's interesting. As I said, I had the role to change over the bank, but I wasn't at the top of the heap, so to speak. Look, I've had a long career. I've been in banking for, unfortunately, 44 years. I started at one of the largest banks in the world and kind of went down from there. I started my career at Chase Manhattan, then started a couple of banks and was CEO of those. So coming into Dime and having this great history but really having to transform and grow a new bank within an existing bank was exciting and a challenge. It's been a great seven years, and the last couple of years, as we merged two banks and then created a bigger Dime and I took over, has been exciting. It's been an interesting time period in terms of the economy and whatnot, but we've done very well and we're set up very well for the future.

Well, you know, I think community banking today is even more important than it's ever been. There are fewer community banks. The banking industry is now really dominated by large institutions, and even our institution at $14 billion is a small institution. What we do is we're part of the community, we're part of the fabric of the community. We build relationships. We know what our customers need, what their wants are, what their business is like, what the community is like, which is very different than a larger institution. We have local decision-makers as opposed to someone doing underwriting a loan in Texas or North Dakota. So we're really part of the community, and we try to service our customers as such. It's kind of like a big fish in a small pond. That's how our customers are to us. Every customer is important. I like to say we have private banking for everyone.

We're really focused on building, continuing to build a commercial relationship business, our C&I business, our healthcare business, and diversifying away from just what was a monoline business of multifamily lending and really having a full-service diversified business bank. Since I joined the bank, we started a residential lending group. Thinking about a bank that's been around for as long as we have, when I joined the bank, we didn't make home loans. We do that now. So really having a well-diversified commercial banking relationship-based organization is our goal.

Well, I'll go back to my comment before. There are fewer and fewer community banks. In both those locations, they are dominated by large institutions that are not really part of the fabric of the community. So we think there's a tremendous opportunity in both Westchester and Staten Island for us to grow our footprint and grow our relationships. It's kind of a gift that keeps on giving in terms of the larger institutions. We think we can do it better, and so far we've been very happy with our success in both those areas.

Look, I always say our two biggest assets are our people and our customers. Forget about the balance sheet and our financials. That's what makes Dime what it is today. Building those relationships, you build those relationships by having good people as your employees. We're really a team. Maybe it goes back to my younger days in sports and whatnot. I think you really have to build a team and be part of the organization. We try to include everyone. We have events, we have spirit committees, we do things around the organization that create a cohesive unit. But really, again, our biggest assets are people.

Well, I think particularly after the most recent minor financial crisis that the world has gone through, and particularly here in the United States, I think you're going to see more M&A. So you're going to see smaller banks getting bigger. Again, there'll be more of an opportunity for Dime to service those customers that are displaced and disrupted. Here in the New York metropolitan area, there's been quite a bit of disruption in the last year between mergers of institutions that went to other institutions locally, a failure of a local bank, and then some problems at the bank that took that bank over. We've been on the offensive. We've been hiring teams of private bankers from some of those institutions. We hired 14 teams in the last year. We hired a new healthcare vertical, we hired a new national deposit team, all locally. So I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity, but I think the disruption will continue because there's going to be continued M&A. As the economy slows, growth is going to be more difficult, and some institutions will not be appropriately set up to handle that kind of environment and they'll look for partners. I think that's going to be an opportunity for ourselves.

Yeah, I mean, we're one of the few banks that during this whole period we've grown deposits $1.5 billion. So while other banks were struggling to get through this period, we went on the offensive, hired teams, and we brought in new customers, new deposit relationships, new loan relationships, and built out additional lending teams to take advantage of the opportunity.

Well, look, Lustgarten is near and dear to my heart. I've had several family members afflicted with pancreatic cancer who are no longer with us. So it's important to us to support those kinds of institutions that really support the community. In my case, Lustgarten was very helpful to me. I didn't know where to go when my father was diagnosed. They guided me through the process and helped us get to the right doctors and do as much as we possibly could. Giving back just felt appropriate. I still get involved in various fundraising events and charity events associated with Lustgarten, as well as the Dime Foundation, which we created in the last few years where we raise money for various charities. Lustgarten is always one of our charities.

Well, I think community banks are always looking toward how do we service the customers. Today, there's a cost to that. Some of the issues out there today are really how do you balance regulation and service with satisfying your shareholders and profitability and also satisfying your customers. I think that's something that everyone's always struggling with. Some folks don't seem to be able to make it and they do an M&A transaction and merge themselves out of existence. We've been able to maneuver the field, provide the right kind of service for the right pricing. I always say there's an old saying: an educated consumer is your best customer. We try to explain that we're not always the cheapest, but we will always give you the best service, and there's a cost to that as well. On the other hand, we understand the customer's needs, so fees and things like that are always part of the equation. How we maneuver that field is something we're proud of and we've been able to do very well. The regulatory environment creates an environment that you have to be very cognizant of. The other thing is from a CRA perspective, community reinvestment, Dime got an outstanding rating, meaning we are giving back to the community. There are not very many banks that get an outstanding rating in CRA, and we're proud of that.

You know, I love building things. Going back to my career, 44 years, I started at the third largest bank in the country at Chase Manhattan. David Rockefeller was the chairman, that tells you how long ago that was. Then I went to work for a bank here in New York City by the name of Dollar Dry Dock. I was 29, the Chief Operating Officer. It's kind of funny, you say we're $14 billion, we had 800 people working for us. I had 800 people working for me back then with a bank that was half the size of what Dime is today. So technology has changed the people aspect and the amount of people you need. After that, I got involved in turning around a couple of banks. I've been around so long that I've seen a number of financial crises: the S&L crisis of the late 80s and early 90s. I was brought on to turn around a bank and did that. Then I started two banks. I started a bank in Bergen County, New Jersey, and eventually sold that to another institution. Then I started another bank in 2005. I started working on it in 2003, it took two years to get it open, but in 2005 we opened Community National Bank. I started that in Great Neck, New York. We grew it to a billion and a half dollars, and then we sold it to BNB. Eventually, I merged with BNB and all those folks came back to work for me and all those customers. Then, as I said, when I joined Dime, I was really building a bank within a bank. So I really enjoy the entrepreneurial aspect of building a bank and building an organization, building it profitably and maximizing our value for our shareholders. All of those were public companies, and I really enjoyed that. Of course, here at Dime, we've had some success and we look forward to more.

Well, we hope so.

Well, I actually come from a pretty, at this point, banking family. My sister is a managing director in compliance at the Bank of New York. My wife is retired now, but she was a banker and held a retail organization in her past life. Now she takes care of her dogs and is very happy doing that. My daughter just graduated from Wake Forest two years ago and is in investment banking, focusing on M&A of financial institutions. So the dinner table is filled with discussions of a lot of things that we're talking about today, which is the financial aspect as well as the customer aspect of banking. It's kind of what we all do.

You know, we have an intern group that comes in every year, 15 kids out of college or in college that are kind of thinking what they want to do. The first thing I say is you've got to like it, you've got to love it, you've got to enjoy it. You spend eight hours or more a day at an office, you really need to want to do it, want to be there, and enjoy your surroundings and what you're doing. Particularly as you're young, it's all about experience and learning, and finding a mentor that brings you along and gives you opportunity. In my case, that was a key part. I started at the largest institutions, I did well, but I also got a very broad understanding of what the banking industry was. From there, I went on to various roles leading up to CEO and chairman of a couple of banks and also starting a couple of banks. So it's really, you've got to enjoy the work. I know there's a lot of talk about lifestyle and balance, but work is work. Hopefully, you can find something that not only provides you balance but you enjoy the work. That's what I tell our young people.

You know, when you think back on it, we thought, 'Oh, it's 160 years, that's great.' But when I think back on it, I consider it quite an honor to be part of an institution that's been around since the Civil War. I think there have been 17 CEOs in the history, but only three in the last 50 years. I'm one of only three in the last 50 years. So it's an honor. It's kind of interesting when you think that when Dime started, Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States. So it's an interesting thing to think about and quite an honor to be part of an organization that has survived world wars, civil wars, depressions, and whatnot, and we're still here servicing the community.

Look, I'd like to be remembered as someone that brought Dime to the next level. We've brought it from a savings bank to a community commercial bank, and I want it to be the most profitable, successful, customer-oriented community commercial bank in the country. That's what I'd like to see down the road. Hopefully, I'm here for a few more years.

Well, the only thing I want to say is, again, it's not a one-man show. It's all about the team. I want to thank all our Dime team members for the hard work and the effort they put in every single day. During the tough times, they're working even harder. In the last year or two, it's been a little bit more interesting, as I said earlier, and the effort that they put in has really accrued to our benefit and the organization. So I really would like to thank them, and I'd like to thank our customers for being loyal and providing us the base to be successful.

Okay, thank you.