Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 11

97 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 11 NEW JERSEY BANKERS ASSOC I AT ION we’re lobbying regulatory or legislative issues, and developing our educational programs, they’re telling us what’s important to them. So, we take that very seriously. Our tagline is “Making Connections” and we really feel that we connect our members with all these other important constituencies, such as legislators, regulators, and the public at large.” BVM: What are some recent initiatives on your agenda? McWeeney: “We’re very focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since the tragic killing of George Floyd, I think everybody has raised their profiled efforts in this space. We had started to do some DE&I things before that happened and we’ve really stepped it up. We’ve established a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, with about 20 banks represented by their employees, mostly people of color. We meet on a regular basis and have created a series of webinars that are free to our members. As part of our DE&I initiative, we’ve proactively reached out to the African-American Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey and encouraged our members to join and get involved with that organization to do things collaboratively. That will be a major initiative going forward. “We’re also dedicated to helping develop the next generation of banking leaders in New Jersey. We’ve had leadership training programs in place for five years and have probably put 80 bankers through in that time. One of our biggest challenges now is to help prepare our members for all the innovation and advances in technology, and competing with fintech firms. We’re now working on helping our members to become better equipped to do that. So, there’s a lot going on.” BVM: What were some ways the pandemic affected NJBankers and banking operations? McWeeney: “We viewed our primary role in the early stages of the pandemic as just making sure our members were connected with all the important constituencies. One of the biggest initiatives being the PPP program. We positioned ourselves as the go-between to make sure our members were informed and to have people at