In their early years, most of today’s established independent banks sought to attract founders and board members who:

•	had significant net worth
•	were perceived as community leaders
•	were willing to assist in generating business for the bank through their contact network

Now, years later, these banks have become complex businesses, with assets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and beyond. Given this reality, their priorities and challenges have changed dramatically. More often than not, board development has not kept pace with the bank’s ever more complex business issues.

The obvious challenge is to develop an ever evolving board in a professional, non-threatening manner, creating a seamless and well planned transitional process.

Truelson Associates is prepared to act as a third party to address this frequently sensitive topic. Our services include:

• Overall board assessment
• Individual board member assessment
• Conducting highly confidential interviews with board members to secure their input and perspective
• Conducting confidential surveys of board members
• Developing profiles of ideal board candidates
• Developing individual director and candidate scorecards for assessment
• Meeting with board chair and President/CEO to plan and implement appropriate board changes

We have also developed a board development scorecard, which allows banks to self-assess their board.