CNY Executive Q&A: A chat with Community Bank’s Mark Tryniski

Editor’s Note: CNY Executive Q&A is a feature appearing regularly in The Central New York Business Journal, authored by guest writer Jeff Knauss, who is president of his own digital-marketing firm. In each edition, Jeff chats with a different executive at a Central New York business or nonprofit, with the interview transcript appearing in a conversational Q&A format.

In this issue, I speak with Mark Tryniski, CEO of Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) and its banking subsidiary, Community Bank N.A. 

Community Bank System operates more than 190 branches across upstate New York and Northeastern Pennsylvania through Community Bank, N.A. The company currently has total assets of about $7.9 billion.

Tryniski lives in Baldwinsville with his hometown sweetheart from Fulton. They have been married 27 years, and have four children, two dogs, and a cat.

JEFF: Tell us just a little bit about your background.

MARK: I was born and raised in Fulton. In high school, I thought I wanted to be a pharmacist, so I went to the Albany College of Pharmacy for one year. I did not do well there, but as is often typical for first-year college students, very much enjoyed the year. I worked and took classes part-time for a couple years. I then enrolled full time at Onondaga Community College and received a two-year business degree. I went to work for Fulton Savings Bank and got the best career advice from Mike Pollock, who is now the president. He told me “go back to school and get an accounting degree.” So I did. I went to SUNY Oswego and got a B.S. in accounting, graduating in 1985. I went to work immediately upon graduation at what was then Coopers & Lybrand (C&L), a public accounting firm in Syracuse.

I worked for C&L, which subsequently became PWC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers). After nine years as a partner, I was advised that if I wanted to grow further with the firm, I needed to relocate to a bigger office like Boston or New York City, which I did not want to do. I was born and raised here. My family and friends are here. I love Central New York and was determined to stay. At that time, the chief financial officer of Community Bank System, a previous client of mine while at PWC, announced his retirement. I reached out to the CEO and was brought on as CFO in 2003. My predecessor, Sandy Belden, retired in 2006, and the board appointed me as president and CEO. 

JEFF: Tell us about the growth trajectory of Community Bank System. 

MARK: Over the past 12 years, the company has more than doubled in size. Our earnings and returns to shareholders have grown even faster than that. A fundamental goal of any business should be to grow your revenues faster than your expenses. I think we have done a fair job, as we’ve grown larger, of creating above-average value for our shareholders. Our average annual shareholder return over the past 15 years is nearly 13 percent. We’ve completed many acquisitions, probably a dozen in the past 10 years. Some have been whole banks, some have been branch purchases from large banks, and several have been acquisitions of wealth management and benefits-administration businesses. (Editor’s note: Community Bank System expects to close on its latest deal, a $142 million acquisition of Oneida Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ONFC), in October.). We’ve also grown organically by executing on our business plan in our markets to grow our banking business, our wealth-management business, and our benefits-administration business. Our growth model has been an effective combination of organic and acquired growth.

JEFF: Is there a philosophy that your organization has maintained and you attribute to the growth of Community Bank?

MARK: If there’s one word I would use to describe what we try to achieve in terms of operating philosophy, it is discipline. We try to be disciplined around the important value drivers of our business, including credit, capital deployment, cost efficiency, and M&A activity. We try to bring discipline to everything we do. We think that’s a model for success and optimal performance, particularly in the banking industry because it’s very highly regulated and if you look at the products and services that banks offer, they’re relatively commoditized. The distinction between a high-performing institution and the alternative is the discipline you bring to how you manage and operate your organization.

JEFF: How would you describe your leadership style? 

MARK: I try to live our values and be disciplined every day. That’s job number one. 

The way I think about my role is not that 2,300 employees report to me, but that I work for them. They’re the ones creating value for our organization day by day, customer by customer, not me. It’s my job to ensure they have the training, the resources, a productive work environment and the support they need to be successful in serving our customers and our communities. It’s also my job to ensure recognition for their efforts, proper compensation, and availability of career development and advancement opportunities. I judge my success by their success. I work for them,

Success is rarely about the CEO, but it is about the senior leadership team the CEO assembles. Business success is a team sport; it’s not chess. My senior management committee consists of 16 incredibly talented and experienced professionals. Their cumulative effort, decisions, judgments, and interactions with our staff, customers and others are significantly more important to our success than anything I can do. 

I think in terms of management style, communication, objectivity, and full disclosure are really important. I think living our values is also very important. We do not play politics and everybody understands it’s about our customers and it’s about our shareholders. You cannot create value in an environment where good news goes upstream, but bad news doesn’t. Everyone in our organization understands if there is bad news, it’s not about crime and punishment. It is about optimizing our outcome. We cannot address issues unless we know what they are. We look forward, out the windshield and not the rearview mirror. 

A robust and free flow of information and communication up and down the chain of command is very important. I think it’s fundamentally about respecting people and the importance of their role in the success of the company. Listening is critically important. It’s a lost skill, because many people believe that as a leader, they should be doing the talking. I believe the opposite. When you have a talented team in place, you sit at the table and you listen. That’s how you learn and gain perspective. That’s how you facilitate a productive discussion, formulate your own thinking, and effect optimal decision-making.         

About the author: Jeff Knauss is managing partner & president of a digital marketing firm, DigitalHyve.com, and has always been interested in hearing successful executives’ stories. He lives in Camillus with his wife Heta and son Max. For more, check out his blog at www.CnyCeo.org

Editor’s Note: CNY Executive Q&A is a feature appearing regularly in The Central New York Business Journal, authored by guest writer Jeff Knauss, who is president of his own digital-marketing firm. In each edition, Jeff chats with a different executive at a Central New York business or nonprofit, with the interview transcript appearing in a conversational Q&A format.

In this issue, I speak with Mark Tryniski, CEO of Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) and its banking subsidiary, Community Bank N.A. 

Community Bank System operates more than 190 branches across upstate New York and Northeastern Pennsylvania through Community Bank, N.A. The company currently has total assets of about $7.9 billion.

Tryniski lives in Baldwinsville with his hometown sweetheart from Fulton. They have been married 27 years, and have four children, two dogs, and a cat.

JEFF: Tell us just a little bit about your background.

MARK: I was born and raised in Fulton. In high school, I thought I wanted to be a pharmacist, so I went to the Albany College of Pharmacy for one year. I did not do well there, but as is often typical for first-year college students, very much enjoyed the year. I worked and took classes part-time for a couple years. I then enrolled full time at Onondaga Community College and received a two-year business degree. I went to work for Fulton Savings Bank and got the best career advice from Mike Pollock, who is now the president. He told me “go back to school and get an accounting degree.” So I did. I went to SUNY Oswego and got a B.S. in accounting, graduating in 1985. I went to work immediately upon graduation at what was then Coopers & Lybrand (C&L), a public accounting firm in Syracuse.

I worked for C&L, which subsequently became PWC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers). After nine years as a partner, I was advised that if I wanted to grow further with the firm, I needed to relocate to a bigger office like Boston or New York City, which I did not want to do. I was born and raised here. My family and friends are here. I love Central New York and was determined to stay. At that time, the chief financial officer of Community Bank System, a previous client of mine while at PWC, announced his retirement. I reached out to the CEO and was brought on as CFO in 2003. My predecessor, Sandy Belden, retired in 2006, and the board appointed me as president and CEO. 

JEFF: Tell us about the growth trajectory of Community Bank System. 

MARK: Over the past 12 years, the company has more than doubled in size. Our earnings and returns to shareholders have grown even faster than that. A fundamental goal of any business should be to grow your revenues faster than your expenses. I think we have done a fair job, as we’ve grown larger, of creating above-average value for our shareholders. Our average annual shareholder return over the past 15 years is nearly 13 percent. We’ve completed many acquisitions, probably a dozen in the past 10 years. Some have been whole banks, some have been branch purchases from large banks, and several have been acquisitions of wealth management and benefits-administration businesses. (Editor’s note: Community Bank System expects to close on its latest deal, a $142 million acquisition of Oneida Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ONFC), in October.). We’ve also grown organically by executing on our business plan in our markets to grow our banking business, our wealth-management business, and our benefits-administration business. Our growth model has been an effective combination of organic and acquired growth.

JEFF: Is there a philosophy that your organization has maintained and you attribute to the growth of Community Bank?

MARK: If there’s one word I would use to describe what we try to achieve in terms of operating philosophy, it is discipline. We try to be disciplined around the important value drivers of our business, including credit, capital deployment, cost efficiency, and M&A activity. We try to bring discipline to everything we do. We think that’s a model for success and optimal performance, particularly in the banking industry because it’s very highly regulated and if you look at the products and services that banks offer, they’re relatively commoditized. The distinction between a high-performing institution and the alternative is the discipline you bring to how you manage and operate your organization.

JEFF: How would you describe your leadership style? 

MARK: I try to live our values and be disciplined every day. That’s job number one. 

The way I think about my role is not that 2,300 employees report to me, but that I work for them. They’re the ones creating value for our organization day by day, customer by customer, not me. It’s my job to ensure they have the training, the resources, a productive work environment and the support they need to be successful in serving our customers and our communities. It’s also my job to ensure recognition for their efforts, proper compensation, and availability of career development and advancement opportunities. I judge my success by their success. I work for them,

Success is rarely about the CEO, but it is about the senior leadership team the CEO assembles. Business success is a team sport; it’s not chess. My senior management committee consists of 16 incredibly talented and experienced professionals. Their cumulative effort, decisions, judgments, and interactions with our staff, customers and others are significantly more important to our success than anything I can do. 

I think in terms of management style, communication, objectivity, and full disclosure are really important. I think living our values is also very important. We do not play politics and everybody understands it’s about our customers and it’s about our shareholders. You cannot create value in an environment where good news goes upstream, but bad news doesn’t. Everyone in our organization understands if there is bad news, it’s not about crime and punishment. It is about optimizing our outcome. We cannot address issues unless we know what they are. We look forward, out the windshield and not the rearview mirror. 

A robust and free flow of information and communication up and down the chain of command is very important. I think it’s fundamentally about respecting people and the importance of their role in the success of the company. Listening is critically important. It’s a lost skill, because many people believe that as a leader, they should be doing the talking. I believe the opposite. When you have a talented team in place, you sit at the table and you listen. That’s how you learn and gain perspective. That’s how you facilitate a productive discussion, formulate your own thinking, and effect optimal decision-making.         

About the author: Jeff Knauss is managing partner & president of a digital marketing firm, DigitalHyve.com, and has always been interested in hearing successful executives’ stories. He lives in Camillus with his wife Heta and son Max. For more, check out his blog at www.CnyCeo.org