That Little Voice Inside (a)

Abstract

Just after 8:00 p.m. on a Monday evening, Catherine Russell, senior vice president and director of business development at Western Banking Group, arrived at one of the branches she oversaw to catch up on some work. She saw movement inside the locked building and was taken aback—it was Rachel Dwyer, the branch manager; her son; and her boyfriend. “Why is she…why are they all in the branch after hours?” Russell wondered. This was yet another item on a list of curious situations Russell had encountered at that particular branch in the past several weeks. Maybe it was nothing, she thought, but that little voice inside was not so sure. Excerpt UVA-OB-1059 Rev. Oct. 7, 2015 That Little Voice Inside (A) Just after 8:00 p.m. on a Monday evening, Catherine Russell, senior vice president and director of business development at Western Banking Group (WBG), pulled into the parking lot of one of the branches she oversaw. She maintained an office in the building and had to catch up on some work. Russell saw movement inside the locked building and was taken aback—it was Rachel Dwyer, the branch manager; her two-year-old son, Matty Dwyer; and her boyfriend, Jack Scorolli. Dwyer and her staff normally left the building shortly after 5:00 p.m., when the bank closed. “Why is she…why are they all in the branch after hours?” Russell wondered. This was yet another item on a list of curious situations Russell had encountered at that particular branch in the past several weeks. Maybe it was nothing, she thought, but that little voice inside was not so sure. Harbor Community Bank When Russell joined what was then Shoreside Bank, in 2007, it was a small community bank with assets of $ 300 million—one of six such banks owned by a holding company, Western Banking Group. At the end of 2008, following a yearlong efficiency study, WBG collapsed the charters of those banks and brought them all under one brand, Harbor Community Bank (HCB). HCB would have a collective $ 2.2 billion in assets and each bank would become a region within HCB. Although WBG was governed by the “big board,” several of those directors also sat on local boards maintained in the different regions. . . .