Pub. 7 2017-2018 Issue 4

18 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G C O L O R A D A N S R E A L I Z E D R E A M S Timothy J. Reimink is a managing director and Patrick Cole is a senior manager at Crowe Horwath LLP, which is endorsed by ABA for risk management consulting services. “A version of this article was originally published in the ABA Banking Journal and is published here with permission.” Graph 4: Salary Increases—Actual vs. Projected   continued from page 17 years, led by a particularly sharp jump in CEO pay from 2016 to 2017. It should be noted, however, that at least some of the one-year increase in reported CEO pay could be attributed to changes in the survey population from one year to the next. In this instance, what is more revealing than the specific year-to-year changes is the contrasting direction of the changes across various executive positions. While the salaries for most top bank executives have risen over the past five years, several positions—top retail banking officer, chief information officer, and chief human resources officer—have moved in the opposite direction. These contrasting trends suggest that boards of directors are placing greater value on executives who play strategic roles in managing risk and credit exposure or in growing their banks’ lending portfolios, while placing less value on retail banking and essential administrative functions. It also is interesting to note that the effects of recent regulatory and disclosure requirements related to top executive pay are not readily apparent in the survey data. This ismost likely due to a lack of clarity regarding how—or even whether—some of these requirements ultimately will be implemented. As those issues are resolved in the coming months, many banks are likely to revisit their compensation strategies, factoring in both the changing regu- latory environment and the evolving trends disclosed by this survey and other sources. When they do, they are likely to find that, while the war for talent is still continuing, there are signs that strate- gies could be starting to shift. n