Five Questions: Jim Batten

Q: Why did you leave O’Reilly, and how did you end up with AG Financial?

A: I’ll always be an O’Reilly guy. But I wanted to be able to spend more time with my family and work on some other projects. After I transitioned out of there, I did some consulting work with AG, helping them on some projects. I really liked the people there and the mission of the organization, and then they approached me about coming to work with them. The rest is history.

Q: AG Financial has $2.5 billion in assets under management. How does it manage that money?

A: (We) invest and manage retirement funds for pastors and missionaries across the world in Assemblies of God and, I think, in some other denominations. They then take those monies that are contributed to the retirement fund and invest them, and a big portion of that is used to make loans for churches. It’s a full-circle idea – these pastors invest their money, and it gets loaned out to churches, which then pay the interest back to create the return on investment for those retirees.

Q: O’Reilly talks a lot about its corporate culture. How is it similar to the culture with AG Financial?

A: I think they’re similar in a lot of ways. O’Reilly is very much about honesty and integrity, teamwork and family. Those things are all biblical principles. One of the things I loved about O’Reilly was that I was never put in a position to do something unethical. But with O’Reilly being a public company, you have to take care of your shareholders. At AG, obviously the culture has those same features. But these pastors also entrust us with their money, so we are responsible to them.

Q: You were CFO at O’Reilly during a period of impressive growth. What are the growth plans for AG Financial?

A: Our goals are to refine our mission and our strategic plan – who we are and what we’re trying to do – and then go out and do it. It’s an exciting opportunity for growth. There are more than 12,000 AG churches across the country, and then a bigger number of other evangelical churches. So there’s a big market for services.

Q: Tell us about your family and your hobbies.

A: My wife, Lorna, and I have been married 22 years. We have four kids. My oldest son is a senior in high school, and then we have a son in eighth grade, a son in third grade and a daughter in kindergarten. They all go to New Covenant Academy, and I’m on the school board there. They’re all involved in sports and music, so we spend a lot of time in that. I like classic cars – my oldest son and I just finished rebuilding an old truck for him. Music is a big part of our life; I play in the band at Hope Community Church – bass guitar and a little drums. So we stay busy.