2008 12 People You Need to Know: Mark McFatridge

The Alabama-based bank had just 1.29 percent of the Springfield metropolitan statistical area market share as of June 30, ranking No. 16 behind smaller, locally based banks.

That’s why Mark McFatridge says he jumped at the chance in September 2006 to work in Springfield as the first area executive for the bank’s newly created Central/Southern Missouri Banking Group, covering 19 counties.

Upon arriving in town from Indianapolis, where he was Regions’ chief financial officer for the Midwest region, McFatridge says his first job was to clarify what Regions wanted to be. He says the bank was trying to be “all things to all people” – a difficult task in an MSA with 46 banks.

His first step was convincing some of the bank’s own employees.

“Once we were able to do that, we could focus externally and get out there and tell our story,” he says.

The big idea for how to tell their story, McFatridge says, came from retired Empire Bank executive Bill Reser.

“He said, ‘What if you just had some small intimate gatherings of 15 to 20 people, where you talked about the bank and your vision, and asked for their feedback?’” McFatridge says.

On that note, McFatridge hosted five Meet the Management Team meetings in Springfield and Branson to reintroduce business and community leaders to Regions. “We’ve had to approach it as hand-to-hand combat in marketing,” he says. “We challenged our calling officers to knock on doors, talk to centers of influence, call customers, former customers, anyone who would listen to us.”

That works well for McFatridge, who says communicating with people is a responsibility he relishes.

“There are so many great companies and people to talk to in Springfield, getting out and talking to them about what makes them successful is by far my favorite part of the job,” he says. “It’s about being outside the bank, learning new things and filing them away.”

McFatridge says his defining career moment was being one of only 12 people who served on the merger integration team that joined Regions and Union Planters Bank – the merger that brought the Regions name to Springfield in 2005.

Mark McFatridge

Position: Area executive, Regions Bank’s Central/Southern Missouri Banking Group

Age: 40

Education: Bachelor’s degree in accounting and MBA in finance, Butler University

Career: Chief financial officer for Regions’ Midwest region; chief operating and financial officer for Pleasant Run Inc., a nonprofit organization to help abused children in Indianapolis; commercial relationship manager for Fifth Third Bank

Q&A Date: Jan. 15

Mark McFatridge is one SBJ's 2008 12 People You Need to Know. Click here for the full list of 12 People and information on the monthly breakfast events introducing each of them. The special publication profiling each of the 12 is available here.