Future Tech Banker is hosted by Alec Crawford, Eric Cook, and Jack Hubbard. Together, they bring deep experience in banking, digital strategy, risk, business development, and industry leadership. The podcast explores the trends, technologies, and ideas shaping the future of community banking, with conversations focused on innovation, growth, leadership, customer experience, and the future of the industry. This podcast is sponsored by Verapath, WSI, and Saint Meyer & Hubbard. Podcast production and sound engineering are by Troutman Street Audio. You can find them on LinkedIn.

This episode of Future Tech Banker features two highly experienced banking and technology leaders and co-hosts of the show: Jack Hubbard and Eric Cook. They share pro tips for sales, conferences, and marketing as a bank or an individual at a bank. Jack Hubbard is a veteran banking consultant who has trained more than 80,000 bankers over his career and is widely known for expertise in sales, relationship banking, and leadership development. Eric Cook is a former banker turned digital and AI advisor who works extensively with community banks on digital transformation, AI adoption, marketing, and LinkedIn strategy.

Main Takeaways

• AI adoption in banking is primarily a leadership and cultural challenge rather than a technology problem. Eric Cook compared today’s AI concerns to the early resistance banks had toward social media and digital marketing adoption.
• Conferences create major career and networking opportunities when attendees intentionally prepare beforehand, connect with new people, and avoid isolating themselves with coworkers.
• Emphasize disciplined follow-up after conferences, including sharing learnings internally, engaging attendees on LinkedIn, thanking organizers, and turning conference insights into actionable plans for the bank.
• Community banks should proactively use digital tools like LinkedIn, QR codes, AI transcription tools, and social media content creation to maximize conference value, strengthen thought leadership, and improve follow-up.
• Human interaction and in-person relationships are becoming more valuable in the AI era. Despite rapid advances in AI, the hosts argued that conferences, spontaneous conversations, and personal relationships remain irreplaceable.

Mentioned on the podcast:

Indiana Bankers Mega Conference — https://www.indianabankers.org

WSI — https://www.poweredbywsi.com

Verapath — https://www.verapath.com

Alloy Labs Alliance — https://alloylabs.com

Graduate School of Banking — https://www.gsb.org

Marketing AI Institute — https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com

Plaud Note — https://www.plaud.ai

Social Media Marketing World — https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld

MAICON (Marketing AI Conference) — https://www.maicon.ai

JP Nichols — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpnichols

Alec Crawford — https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleccrawford

Copyright (c) 2026 by Verapath

Future Tech Banker is hosted by Alec Crawford, Eric Cook, and Jack Hubbard. Together, they bring deep experience in banking, digital strategy, risk, business development, and industry leadership. The podcast explores the trends, technologies, and ideas shaping the future of community banking, with conversations focused on innovation, growth, leadership, customer experience, and the future of the industry. This podcast is sponsored by Verapath, WSI, and Saint Meyer & Hubbard. Podcast production and sound engineering are by Troutman Street Audio. You can find them on LinkedIn.

Cashin White, Director of Growth and Innovation at BOK Financial, joins Jack Hubbard and Alec Crawford for a discussion grounded in practical bank growth, sales enablement, and responsible AI adoption. White brings more than two decades of experience across commercial and middle-market banking, with a background serving organizations ranging from small businesses to billion-dollar energy companies. In the episode, he describes how BOK Financial, now over $50 billion in assets and operating across 11 markets, has pursued organic growth through a focused go-to-market strategy, stronger sales culture, and better technology ROI. He explains how tools such as Salesforce, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, RelPro, Microsoft Copilot, Teams, and OneNote are being used to improve prospecting, pre-call planning, and banker efficiency. The conversation also highlights the importance of executive sponsorship, disciplined adoption, dashboard-driven accountability, and tailored coaching for both newer and more experienced bankers. White emphasizes that AI should help bankers become more prepared, informed, and strategically relevant to clients, while still operating within secure infrastructure and common-sense risk controls. The episode closes with a candid discussion of fraud, deepfakes, and the need for banks to balance innovation with compliance and operational vigilance.

Summary:

• Organic growth strategy: BOK Financial is focused on top-line revenue growth through sales enablement, banker upskilling, and a more disciplined go-to-market approach.
• AI in banker workflow: Microsoft Copilot and related tools are being applied to prospect research, pre-call planning, note capture, and daily productivity.
• Accountability and adoption: White stresses that tools alone are insufficient; dashboards, coaching, executive support, and measurable usage are needed to drive behavior change.
• Culture as a growth lever: The bank is building a culture where sales, innovation, and learning are visible, encouraged, and tied to success stories across markets.
• Risk and fraud awareness: The discussion underscores secure AI deployment, internal governance, and growing concern over fraud and deepfake-enabled attacks.

Referenced in this episode:

Companies:

• BOK Financial
• Verapath
• Saint Meyer & Hubbard
• WSI
• Troutman Street Audio
• Microsoft
• Salesforce
• RelPro
• LinkedIn
• Lord Abbett
• Netflix
• ChatGPT
• Phish
• Denver Art Museum

Regulators / Industry Bodies:

• Harvard Business School
• Stanford University
• University of Puget Sound

Technologies:

• Microsoft Copilot
• Copilot Premium
• Salesforce
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• RelPro
• OneNote
• Microsoft Teams
• ChatGPT
• AI agents
• LLMs
• Deepfakes

Copyright © 2026 by Verapath

Future Tech Banker is hosted by Alec Crawford, Eric Cook, and Jack Hubbard. Together, they bring deep experience in banking, digital strategy, risk, business development, and industry leadership. The podcast explores the trends, technologies, and ideas shaping the future of community banking, with conversations focused on innovation, growth, leadership, customer experience, and the future of the industry. This podcast is sponsored by Verapath, WSI, and St. Meyer & Hubbard. Podcast production and sound engineering are by Troutman Street Audio. You can find them on LinkedIn.

Jill Castilla joins the episode as the CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond and a widely recognized leader in community banking innovation. The conversation traces how she helped turn around a bank facing severe credit, fraud, and operational problems, using transparency, culture change, and long-term strategic thinking to restore stability and build momentum. She discusses why community banks must treat AI, digital banking, and emerging technologies as strategic opportunities rather than optional experiments, while also maintaining strong controls around cybersecurity, vendor management, and customer trust. Jill also shares how her work during the pandemic, including collaboration with Mark Cuban on relief and PPP-related tools, demonstrated the agility and public-service value of community banks. A major focus of the episode is ROGER, the digital banking platform her team built to serve enlisted military members, veterans, and military families with low-fee, accessible banking designed around their needs. Across the discussion, she emphasizes practical leadership, continuous employee training, risk awareness, and the importance of keeping customer outcomes at the center of innovation.

Summary:

• Turnaround leadership: Jill explains how Citizens Bank of Edmond recovered from credit issues, fraud, and reputational damage through transparency, team alignment, and disciplined execution.
• AI with discipline: She argues that community banks should actively learn and experiment with AI while maintaining safeguards around privacy, cybersecurity, and third-party risk.
• Customer-led innovation: The episode repeatedly underscores that technology should solve real customer problems, not simply improve internal efficiency.
• Military banking opportunity: Jill outlines how ROGER was created to better serve enlisted service members, veterans, and military families with accessible digital banking tools.
• Community bank advantage: She highlights that smaller institutions can innovate faster, collaborate closely with customers, and use partnerships to stay competitive with larger banks.

Referenced in this episode:

Companies:

• Citizens Bank of Edmond
• ROGER
• Verapath
• St. Meyer & Hubbard
• JPMorgan Chase
• Nimbus
• Teslar

Regulators / Industry Bodies:

• Federal Reserve
• FDIC
• American Bankers Association (ABA)
• Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA)
• Independent Bankers Association of Texas

Technologies:

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Machine learning
• Quantum computing
• Digital banking
• Blockchain
• Cryptocurrency

Copyright © 2026 by Verapath

Future Tech Banker is hosted by Alec Crawford, Eric Cook, and Jack Hubbard. Together, they bring deep experience in banking, digital strategy, risk, business development, and industry leadership. The podcast explores the trends, technologies, and ideas shaping the future of community banking, with conversations focused on innovation, growth, leadership, customer experience, and the future of the industry. This podcast is sponsored by Verapath, WSI, and Saint Meyer & Hubbard. Podcast production and sound engineering are by Troutman Street Audio. You can find them on LinkedIn.

In this first episode, the hosts introduce the show and welcome John Kowal, Chief Technology Officer of Peapack Private Bank & Trust, a community bank serving the New Jersey and New York City metro market. Kowal outlines his role overseeing technology, operations support, training, innovation, and the bank’s AI team, and explains how the bank has approached AI over several years. The conversation centers on practical applications of AI in banking, including cybersecurity readiness, data analysis, workflow support, digital employees, and meeting-preparation tools for commercial and wealth teams. Kowal emphasizes that community banks do not need mega-bank scale to benefit from AI, but they do need internal expertise, governance, training, and trusted vendor partnerships. The hosts also discuss cultural adoption, the risks of shadow AI, hallucination, compliance expectations, and the importance of keeping humans in the loop for regulated decisions. The episode closes with a broader discussion of how AI may reshape competition in community banking, while also raising concerns around fraud, cyber risk, and customer protection.

Summary:

• AI adoption in banking: The discussion explores how banks can use AI to improve internal workflows, analytics, and employee productivity.
• Community bank AI strategy: John Kowal describes how Peapack Private Bank & Trust is using AI for analytics, internal workflows, and operational improvement.
• Risk and governance: The discussion highlights cybersecurity, shadow AI, hallucination risk, enterprise controls, and the need for clear AI inventories and oversight.
• Culture and training: The speakers stress that successful AI adoption depends on ongoing employee training, internal champions, and business-line engagement.
• Competitive impact: The episode frames AI as a chance for community banks to improve client service, increase banker productivity, and compete more effectively.

Referenced in this episode:

Companies

• Future Tech Banker
• Peapack Private Bank & Trust
• Verapath
• WSI
• Saint Meyer & Hubbard
• Goldman Sachs
• Morgan Stanley
• Anthropic
• ChatGPT
• JPMorgan
• McKinsey
• Amazon
• Montclair State University
• Fairleigh Dickinson University

Regulators / Industry Bodies

• FDIC
• NIST
• Cyber Risk Institute
• Graduate School of Banking in Madison
• Florida Bankers Association
• Pennsylvania Bankers Association

Technologies

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• AI agents
• Digital employees
• AI chatbots
• Data warehouse
• Cybersecurity
• Zero-day exploits
• Ransomware
• Enterprise AI
• Data loss prevention (DLP)
• CRM
• Blockchain
• Stablecoin
• Crypto ATMs

Copyright © 2026 by Verapath