With more than 30 years of experience in commercial banking, BBVA-Compass Jacksonville and North Florida CEO Nelson Bradshaw — who was promoted to CEO in early 2015 after nine years with the bank — established a reputation early in his career for being able to be successful despite challenging economic forces.
This started while he was working for Baton Rouge-based Louisiana National Bank.
“In the mid 80s, Texas and Louisiana had a financial crisis even worse than the one our country had recently,” Bradshaw recalled. “I was moved in to the department that tried to put together game plans to work through the problems our commercial clients were having… I managed to keep my head above water and was rewarded with promotions a lot earlier than typical because of this.”
Bradshaw arrived in Jacksonville from Compass’ Pensacola operation nine years ago, shortly after the BBVA acquired Compass. The country was at the precipice of the Great Recession and Jacksonville Compass, like many other lending institutions at the time, was heavily reliant on investments in real estate loans.
Today, the bank’s commercial market portfolio is much more balanced, with 80 percent residing in corporate business and the remaining 20 percent in real estate. Despite prevailing economic challenges, the Northeast Florida commercial arm of BBVA-Compass has been growing at a rate of 15 percent per year, and Bradshaw’s Jacksonville team has helped make Northeast Florida the bank’s No. 1 performing market.
Meanwhile, with BBVA-Compass’ mobile application racking up accolades — including three consecutive Javelin Strategy and Research Group’s Mobile Banking Leader in Functionality Award in 2015 — Bradshaw has stressed the importance of innovation and education in digital financial services, even bringing in world-renowned hacker and cybersecurity consultant Kevin Mitnick for client-focused forums.
“BBVA-Compass has made its way to the front of the financial industry’s digital revolution on the strength of its technology and its vision, which embraces disruption from within and without and positions the bank as a thoughtful, provocative agent of change.”
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Source: Jacksonville Business Journal