Jennifer: We’ll start with the basics. Who are you?
Michael: Michael Ahmed from Staten Island, New York. Sneakerhead, dad of two young girls, four and eight, married to my wife, Danielle. We both went to SUNY New Paltz for business psychology. I obviously didn’t end up working in psychology, but I use that skill set every day, understanding personalities, knowing how to communicate with people, and genuinely enjoying connecting with them. Understanding people from that perspective takes you a lot further than just doing a transaction.
Jennifer: Absolutely. Tell me what you do and how that all ties together.
Michael: I started at Citibank, where I was very transactional as a consumer banker and honestly didn’t fully understand the business yet. They taught me the ropes as a personal banker, business banker, and eventually branch manager. From there I moved to First Republic and learned the high touch, white glove side of banking. As an entrepreneur within that role, I grew an office from negative profitability to positive profitability and built something I was really proud of.
We did a lot of fun marketing events tailored to the Upper West Side. I became a district manager overseeing a few offices. Then I found out I was having my first kid, and literally the next night someone reached out asking me to join Signature Bank.
Jennifer: Wait, the next night? That’s wild timing.
Michael: I know. My child wasn’t even born yet and all I could think about was, am I going to make it to recitals? Baseball games? At the time I was working 14 to 16 hour days, and work life balance suddenly became really important to me.
So I went to Signature and built a six year career there. We ramped up significantly during COVID, capitalized on PPP, and then Signature went through what it went through, along with First Republic and a few other banks during that period. It was a rollercoaster. Eventually the bank wasn’t there anymore in the way it had been, and Flagstar took over for about a year. No disrespect to Flagstar, they’ll be fine, but once private equity came in, I knew it was time to find something new.
Instead of following the crowd to one of the bigger banks that a lot of bankers transitioned to, I chose a bank not many people know about. I call it the little engine that could. Fieldpoint Private. I brought 21 years of banking experience here and the opportunity to be part of something special, almost like the early days of a First Republic or Signature, where you can look back one day and say, we built this.
The bank had some negative press at one point and was in pretty rough shape. It’s not perfect today, but we’ve come a long way. And the best part is that I brought my team from First Republic with me and they’re still with me here.
What we do day to day is high touch, white glove banking, banking without a 1-800 number. Imagine being able to call and actually speak to a real person, without paying a premium for that kind of service. That, to me, is the entire point. If I call Verizon, I sit on hold for two hours.
Jennifer: We’ve talked about this a lot. I think the shift away from the anonymous mega bank experience, which is where most people were heading before COVID, really changed during COVID. Nobody could get anyone on the phone to talk about PPP or get real help. People started saying, I don’t want this anymore. I want to know who I’m dealing with.
But you don’t want to be with just a small local bank, you also want real technology. Fieldpoint has really found that sweet spot. Walk me through it.
Michael: We have full consumer and commercial banking, so you get all the bells and whistles you’d get from any other bank. On the consumer side: mortgages, HELOCs, construction loans, securities backed lines of credit, personal loans, personal lines of credit.
Jennifer: So basically there’s nothing you can’t do on the lending side.
Michael: Pretty much. And on the commercial side: commercial lines of credit, commercial real estate loans, M&A and partner buyouts. We get creative.
The real difference, on top of the service, is that you’re not peeling through 25 layers. You’re not submitting an online application and waiting in the dark. We look at every situation and try to find a creative way to make it work within our risk standards and policies, but we think outside the box.
When you have that kind of flexibility at a smaller institution, it’s a huge deal. Good clients appreciate constant communication. Nothing happens overnight, but knowing someone is hand holding you through the process is critical. You’re not getting that at the big banks. And if I genuinely can’t help, I’ll tell the client exactly why and make sure I connect them with someone who can.
That’s what’s really fun about what I do, the networking piece. No matter what someone needs, I’m going to find someone who can fulfill it. I have a whole network of other bankers, non bank lenders, who aren’t loan sharks and will treat clients the way I do. If a deal is a little complicated, they can still make it work, and if not, I tell the client exactly why and make sure I connect them with someone who can.
Jennifer: Let’s talk about introductions. Most of my client introductions are because they’re banking with a massive institution and not getting the service they deserve. To the bank, those clients are forgettable, but to the client, that could be generational wealth. Those are the people that need a Michael in their life, someone genuinely looking out for them.
Beyond those clients, who do you find you can do the most for compared to a big bank?
Michael: I really enjoy working with the nonprofit sector. I feel like they’re underserved. Overall I’m industry agnostic, but I do have a niche on the commercial side. Businesses doing between 10 to 250 million in revenue are a real sweet spot for us. That said, I also work with PE firms managing 4.2 billion. It’s that middle ground of clients who just don’t get attention anywhere else.
When something goes wrong, who do you call? If you have fraud on your account, how does the bank handle it? If you need to send a wire and it gets flagged by the fraud department, and you’re getting sixteen calls trying to release it, and it takes two days, but you’re a jet broker and you just lost a client because you couldn’t move fast enough. It’s situations like that, where you can’t just pick up the phone and get a simple resolution.
It’s also the clients getting hit with ridiculous fees because nobody is looking at their actual relationship value. I spoke with a billionaire recently, completely by chance, and found out his bank was trying to charge him ten thousand dollars for an escrow account.
Jennifer: Wait, WHAT?!?!
Michael: Right? I asked the person who referred him, doesn’t this guy have a significant relationship with that bank? Where’s the relationship value? And he said, that’s a great point, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I told him, if you come to me with an escrow agent account, even if it only takes five minutes of my time, and your client has a meaningful deposit relationship with me, I’m not charging for that. Respectfully.
That billionaire ended up on the phone with me specifically because of that conversation. It comes down to seeing people for who they are and treating them with respect. When you’re open minded and humble, good things come your way and people genuinely want to talk to you. Same with a founder raising a Series A. I’m not doing it because I expect something back. I’m doing it because I have relationships with PE firms and angel investors who love this kind of deal flow, and I’ll send them the deck and get them on the phone, even if nothing ever comes of it for me directly.
Jennifer: That’s the essence of it. One of the things that’s genuinely unique about you is that you don’t approach every conversation as a potential transaction. You don’t go in thinking, is this person going to become a client or refer me clients? You think about how someone fits into your universe of relationships. Can they help my clients? Can I reach out to them with a random question, not even to do business, just because something seemed off and I want a second opinion?
Your response is never, well, they’re not my client, so I can’t help. It’s always, here’s what I think, or let me talk to them directly. That’s what makes you such a valuable resource beyond just banking. I know your clients reach out to you as a trusted advisor. And you actually know the right people to send them to. Do you think that comes from your degree, or are you just naturally a giver?
Michael: I’m a giver. I’ve always tried to help people, sometimes to a fault. You want to be kind, and occasionally people take advantage of that. But it’s just who I am. The number of people who don’t makes it all worth it. When I can connect two people who genuinely benefit from knowing each other, that’s everything to me. Beyond banking, which is obviously my trade and I need to be successful at it, being able to help people in any way is fulfilling.
Jennifer: Do you ever feel taken advantage of?
Michael: Yeah, for sure. It stings when it happens, and you can’t always predict it ahead of time. But I don’t have the bandwidth to evaluate every interaction that closely when I’m trying to move fast and help people with real intent. Most people are great. But yes, some people take advantage. I’ve gotten messages like, “You haven’t sent me anything in a while.” Excuse me?
Jennifer: I’m sorry to hear that, but happy to hear it’s rare. You mentioned something earlier that I want to circle back to, you said “Fieldpoint is building something”. You’ve got a broad range of services, real white glove treatment, the ability to actually talk to a person, and solid technology. So why wouldn’t someone come to you? What do you hear from clients about why they hesitate to switch?
Michael: Sometimes it’s the size of the transaction. We’re a 1.5 billion dollar bank, so we have legal lending limits. If someone comes in with a 20 million dollar commercial real estate deal or M&A transaction, I have to say, I can’t do that one, but let me connect you with someone who can. Or I’ll talk to a 10 billion dollar PE firm and they’ll think, you’re six and a half times smaller than us, why would we park money with you? Even if it’s temporary, their investors are going to ask who we are and why their capital is sitting with a smaller institution.
Jennifer: That’s fair. So how do you grow past that? It feels a little chicken and egg. You can’t get bigger deals because you’re not big enough, but you can’t get bigger because you’re not landing those deals.
Michael: Right. The key is patience. Real, organic growth, one core client relationship at a time. When I say core, I don’t mean a savings account sitting on 100 million dollars. That sounds great on paper, but the moment your interest rate changes, that money walks out the door and you’re back to nothing.
I’d rather bring in a client who moves their full banking relationship over. They open a line of credit, they use our treasury management system for wires and ACH, they get a credit card with us, they experience the high touch service firsthand. Now you have a cheerleader. We didn’t always have those. The bank has been around since 2008, but it started as an extension of a wealth advisory firm, where advisors would tell clients, just give the bank this piece and that piece. People ended up mailing in checks instead of actually banking with us.
You want people who say, this bank is legit. Do that two or three hundred times and the multiplier effect is incredible. I got what I thought was a spam email recently from someone in my network saying, “We heard you’re connecting clients with Series A opportunities, can we talk?” That’s gold. That means I have a reputation out there for actually doing this for people, and that’s exactly what I want.
Jennifer: So it really is about consistency over time, not chasing the big win.
Michael: Exactly. Over time you become a well oiled machine, and you’re upfront with people. We’ll give you a competitive rate, but you need to actually bank with us. If that’s not the right fit, we’re honestly not the right bank for you. It takes time, and patience is the key piece, because it’s easy to get frantic chasing deposits. That’s not how sustainable growth works. You put yourself out there and people come over. We’ve brought over 250 clients in the two years since I joined. People are buying in. As that number grows, the bank scales right along with it.
Jennifer: So it’s little by little, and then eventually big by big.
Michael: Exactly. And as we grow, we keep putting ourselves out there and adding the right team members. We just brought on a new team that had a long, successful run at Barclays. That’s huge for us, having an experienced team bring over their existing portfolio. It’s another piece of the puzzle.
Culture matters enormously here too. Everyone shares the same mindset. A doer mindset, client first. The bank’s success matters obviously, but if you lead with putting the client first, you win.
Jennifer: I love that. Is there anything about Fieldpoint, or about you, that I didn’t ask that you want people to know?
Michael: I think it all comes back to working with a team that genuinely cares. We’re a boutique firm, so you’re not peeling through layers to get anything done. You get real answers quickly about what we can and cannot do. You’re dealing with people who have been in this industry a long time, a lender, our chief credit officer, my boss who’s the chief banking officer. People who understand banking and understand service, and who will point you in the right direction.
Another piece worth mentioning is that we can offer FDIC insurance up to 300 million dollars, which matters a lot to certain clients. If someone told me they wanted to bring 300 million to us, I’d probably have some questions, since that would represent a huge percentage of our total deposit base. But for the 10, 15, 20 million dollar clients, that added insurance coverage offers real peace of mind, especially for anyone affected by the bank failures in 2023. We’ve picked up a number of clients moving funds over for exactly that reason. You have immediate access to your money, you can sweep it as needed, wire what you need, and it comes right back when you need it.
At the end of the day, people are getting genuine care from people who actually look out for them. That’s the real difference between us and a lot of other banks.
Jennifer: I love that so much. Thank you for doing this.
