Sometimes, leadership comes from the most interesting places. And friendship, too. Such is the case with and of Mr. Bryan Jordan, CEO, First Horizon Bank. And powerful partnerships also, such as the one including Operation HOPE and First Horizon Bank.
On the surface, Bryan and I could not be more, different, but what we believe, and how we act on these ‘beliefs,’ are mostly the same. One example is our shared love, respect and admiration of and for civil rights icon, and our HOPE Global Spokesman Ambassador Andrew J. Young. A man who made ‘all of our freedoms,’ possible.
Or whether it was Bryan strongly backing my and our efforts to secure the support from the Memphis City government and the Memphis airport authorities — in recognizing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final flight, in 1968, right before his assassination in Memphis, TN on April 4th, 1968.
And then of course, at the end of the day — one’s commitment is shown and underscore in the wheelhouse of the very real work being done on the ground, impacting real people’s lives. And whether this work also falls within the core principals and building blocks of one’s actionable business plan. I have seen Bryan Jordan and First Horizon Bank step up, again and again.
Over the course of our partnership together, I have personally attended and participated in more individual HOPE Inside grand openings, impacting local underserved communities, than I can easily remember. There have been a lot, because our partnership is substantive, engaged, and about changing real people’s lives. And creating new, future customers for the bank also. That’s the essence, for us, of and around what CRA (the Community Reinvestment Act) is all about. Nurturing, emerging markets for the future and getting them access to sustainable prime credit.
We now have active and engaged HOPE Inside locations throughout the First Horizon Bank platform, equal to approximately 10% of all First Horizon Bank branches — throughout their overall bank branch network.
The best is yet to come.
Let’s go…
John Hope Bryant