While at the Detroit Regional Chamber Michigan Policy Conference last week on Mackinac Island, EL CENTRAL Hispanic News Managing Editor Robert Dewaelsche sat down for an interview on a wide range of questions with Ed Siaje, President of Bank of America Detroit. Siaje assumed his new role at the bank in November 2024. He has 26 years of experience in financial services and previously was responsible for more than 280 financial centers. He is a native of Southeastern Michigan.
EL CENTRAL: Thank you, Ed, for sitting down with EL CENTRAL. We are so appreciative of your support and my first question: Working with local journalism and ethnic publications and communications vehicles, where does that come from as far as the strategy that’s being followed by Bank of America?
Siaje: It’s important to us as an overall arching marketing strategy. But obviously we here locally take that very much to heart and we want to deliver because we’re all from the area here. We live here. We work here. We raise our families here. So we love the diversity. We want our teammates to mirror the communities we serve. We want to be able to speak in the language that people prefer to speak in so we can act with them, etcetera.
There’s a ton of reasons for why this community is important to us; the diversity is important to us and having the right team to face off in those specific geographic regions.
EL CENTRAL: We really appreciate it, not only as a media outlet, but also as a small business.
Siaje: Which is also right important. That’s the backbone of the economy is the people and the small business owners. And a lot of these owners are typically second-generation immigrants or their parents were immigrants. And so it’s important that we’re there to help support and educate them along the way.
EL CENTRAL: Speaking of small businesses, a lot of banks like the large national corporate banks are into the middle market and larger accounts. Talk about your commitment to helping small businesses develop.
Siaje: It’s a great question. So, we have a major commitment to small business and obviously we do all the large corporate stuff, but the small business is the cornerstone to every community. And that small business owner is critical because a lot of communities need these smaller businesses.
Grocery stores, retail shops, a place to change your oil, whatever it might be. And so, we want to be there to provide that opportunity for them to grow and mature and achieve whatever goals they have. So we have a huge commitment to it.
Actually, we have recently just combined our small businesses and business banking teams for the single reason of we want the biggest experts, the greatest experts we have, talking to all of our business owners. So not to divide them off where you have a small business banking focus specifically that doesn’t have the overall platform and capabilities that we can provide those clients. So, we’ve up tiered our talent to do a better job to deliver to every small business there is out there.
EL CENTRAL: That leads to a question about your outreach into the community in terms of sharing information and training and financial literacy, whether it’s for individuals or businesses. Can you talk about how that’s kind of evolving at Bank of America?
Siaje: So, we are very focused on not only the educational piece, but showing up with nonprofits doing financial education, doing workforce development, doing all the things, helping business owners with their workforce, which is, as you know, critical, helping them with their borrowing needs, budgeting, really getting into the details of their strategic plan, how to drive the support there. We have community banking officers that are local. We have business banking teammates that are experts in the field. And also internally, what we’re doing is we’re trying to connect internally a little bit more. So for example, if you’re a small business owner but you don’t have a personal relationship with us, like your personal checking or wealth management business, what we’re trying to do is internally connect a little closer. So, we make sure we help clients not only with their specific thing that we’re currently dealing with now, but how do we help them on their individual side as well as their business side?
We do a lot of work internally to really connect and bring in these experts from the different lines of business that we have internally to deliver for this holistic client, basically what’s their business and their personal life?
EL CENTRAL: And if we can expand on that in your new role responsible for developing the market in the Detroit area, can you talk about the commitment and the ways that the bank is connected to Detroit leadership and the issues that Detroit is facing?
Siaje: So, we spend a ton of money supporting Detroit. Whether that’s nonprofit grants, which Star (Estrella Crawford) does and delivers on a consistent basis. Volunteerism. We have done over 35,000 hours of volunteerism here in the state so we roll up our sleeves. We provide financially, we provide the advice. And then of course, we have all the services that are around and we try to set up ways to make sure that we’re showing up in the community. Like we we’re just at Motown over the weekend doing the founders’ event.
We were with Mark Moreno at the Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. We support LA SED, SER Metro, all the organizations that you’re very familiar with. We’re involved and we’re strong partners and we asked them all time, “what can we do for you?” Sometimes it’s “Can you help us paint this room?” “Can you help us clean up during all the landscaping?” And then we send people out to do that. Sometimes it’s “Hey, we need help with our campaign or some kind of strategy we’re trying to bring life”. So, we might write a check. It’s just different. Sometimes we show up as team to educate their constituents, do financial education and talk about home loans or small business, etcetera. So, it’s really whatever they ask of us is. Or sometimes we’ll push them a little bit to say, “Hey, what can we do to show up for?”
EL CENTRAL: What would you say would the bank’s strength be in terms of warranting an outstanding record (rating) in Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)?
Siaje: I’d say it’s what we do around home loans. So that’s a huge piece. So we have a great program that helps people build wealth, which is purchasing their first home. The way we do that is we provide $7,500 upfront for closing costs. So, think about your title fees, your recording fees, what it cost to close on a new home. And $7,500 usually covers most of the cost, if not all of it. And then we also help with down payment assistance up to $10,000 or 3%, whatever’s last. So, you can help a person get in their home.
That’s a huge way that we help deliver for the local community, especially low to moderate income areas, to your question around the Community Reinvestment Act. So we do a lot of work there, number one.
Number two, we also spend hours and volunteer and focus on our team in those spaces that we think need the most help. That’s another way we fill in our CRA accountability, if you will. We also have financial centers in those locations to be there to support the needs, the daily needs and operating of people locally. So they have a bank to go to, a place to get a credit card, a place to apply for a loan, a place to get advice , etcetera. So, all of those (activities) kind of work together to help us drive that.
EL CENTRAL: I know you’re chair of the United Way of Southeastern Michigan. Are you also personally involved in other nonprofits?
Siaje: Absolutely, I’m on Business Leaders for Michigan, as well, and the Detroit Economic Club, and I’ve spent time on ACCESS and other boards. So I’ve been on a lot of boards. I’m born and raised in the area, so it’s really important to me personally that we’re all there. But more importantly, it’s less about what I can do personally and more about how do I engage the entire team of 13, 14 hundred employees and get them active. Because, as you could imagine, I’m one person. But mobilizing 13 or 1400 teammates can make a much greater impact than I can. So, it’s really about ensuring that we find what our teammates commitments are, where their passions are, and then help them figure out how to use that in the local community.
EL CENTRAL: And in those positions where you do play a leadership role and things that are happening in Detroit, what’s your personal vision for where you’d like to see the bank play a role in in Detroit’s future?
Siaje: Well, I think we want to be a very key partner for that. Obviously, we want to stay close that we want to be part of the story. It’s important to us that we touch as many lives or people or businesses as we can because we know we have a lot of resources and capabilities that we want to share with people. So we want to be part of that story. We want to help grow that entire economy and community.
So, it’s about just really trying to figure out how we can engage them as often as possible. And there’s a lot of ways to do that. Another way that we do it, I think that is different than our peers, is back to this internal focus as well, because you might be a client, for example, of Merrill Lynch. And you might have a wealth management relationship, but you may not have your home loan with us. So, we want to talk to you about what’s your current interest rate and help you save money there. And if you’re not banking with us, then how do we get you to bank with us, as well? Because once you have things in one spot, you can know what the right and left hand is doing and manage your finances, all of it better. So really for about for us, it’s about how can we be part of the story? How do we help drive that engine forward and then obviously be here as a key player to help make it all happen?
EL CENTRAL: One last question, which may be the hardest to answer: What, if anything has changed in terms of the bank’s position towards DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion)? Has it changed at all?
Siaje: Nothing’s changed. We’ve been around, frankly, for every president but one, I believe. So, we’re not too concerned about the political environment where we’re more focused in on our teammates and doing the right thing. So, what we did is, we did change the name from diversity, equity, inclusion to opportunity and equality like that. But we’ve always been committed internally to ensuring that we have, again, the right people facing off with the right local community and that they can speak the language. They’re from the same background so they can just understand each other, but (work) like a relationship. So we’re focused on that. We’re focused on making sure diversity is opportunity within the bank, as well, so people can achieve their goals, and we’re going to keep doing that regardless of what happens in the world.
EL CENTRAL: That’s a great answer.
Siaje: Absolutely. So, we just keep doing what we think is right and doing what we do best. And, we hope that the outcome is there.
EL CENTRAL: Well, thank you.
