Summer is an extraordinary leader with CDIAC, and I’m equally grateful for the entire team at the Federal Reserve.

Serving on the Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council (CDIAC) has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my first six years as CEO of the bank—especially over these last three years on the council. When I joined, I didn’t fully understand every aspect of banking (and truthfully, who does?). I was still relatively new—only two years into my role at the bank—but I’ve had the privilege of serving and learning from remarkable leaders across the nation and from the Federal Reserve team itself.

One of the habits I’ve developed through this experience is reaching out to my network of business owners and bankers to ask their perspective on the economy. What started as casual check-ins has become a kind of pop-up research—informal yet powerful—and it gives me a more grounded point of view as a CEO.

Going forward, I plan to memorialize those insights in a series of posts on The Accidental Banker at orvinkimbrough.com. These posts will share perspectives from my network—mostly focused on what’s happening in the St. Louis market, though occasionally I’ll reach out to friends in other regions or industries for broader insight.

I’m grateful for the people and partnerships that make this kind of learning possible.

“An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”— Proverbs 18:15 (ESV)