After a packed May that started with a week at Travillian HQ and ended with back-to-back weeks in Nashville, Travillian’s Amber Buker, Chief Research Officer, and Brian Love, Head of Banking & Fintech Search, sit down for an honest, occasionally goofy recap of what they saw on the road. It’s a conversation about young talent on the rise, succession planning, stablecoin readiness, AI in the boardroom, bank-fintech partnerships, and the Wild West of M&A ahead, with a few one-liners along the way (yes, the talent unicorn makes an appearance).
With the banking and fintech search practice running at full speed across the country, Amber and Brian still made time to be in the rooms where the real conversations are happening. What they brought back is worth a listen, and a reminder that two of the people doing the most thinking about where banking is headed are also having fun while they do it.
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The May Conference Lineup
- Finovate
- D.A. Davidson
- Alloy Labs: 2026 Annual Member Meeting
- S&P Global Community Bankers Conference 2026
00:00: Welcome and a Quick Recap of May on the Road
Amber and Brian open the show after a month of cross-country travel and tee up an honest look back at what they saw, who they met, and what surprised them.
00:54: From Pennsylvania to Nashville: The Travel Schedule
Amber and Brian walk through the conferences they attended in May: Finovate, the D.A. Davidson conference, S&P Global, and Alloy Labs in Nashville.
02:02: Why the Banking & Fintech Search Team Is “On Fire”
Brian shares that the last six to eight months have been the busiest he has seen in over ten years at Travillian, with active CTO and CFO searches across multiple geographies and a strong sense of confidence coming out of the industry.
03:51: What Surprised Brian: Young Leaders Taking the Stage at Davidson
Brian counts a wave of CFOs in their early 30s and bank presidents in their 40s at the D.A. Davidson conference, the kind of next-generation talent his team is constantly hunting for in external searches.
06:18: Succession Planning and the Real Cause of Bank Consolidation
Amber connects Brian’s observation to a bigger industry story: aging-out executives without a succession plan in place have quietly become the number one driver of bank consolidation.
07:42: Why 40% of Banks Aren’t Touching Stablecoin
Amber breaks down a stat from S&P Global showing 40% of banks have no stablecoin strategy in place, why that actually makes sense for most community banks, and why tokenized deposits are the more interesting story.
10:48: AI in the Boardroom: A New Idea from the Davidson Stage
Brian unpacks a provocative idea from the Davidson conference floor suggesting AI could play a quasi-board-member role for stress testing, risk flagging, and shortening marathon board meetings.
12:21: Debt Mindset vs. Equity Mindset: Lessons from Alloy Labs
Under Chatham House rules at Alloy Labs, Amber heard a sharp framing for why banks and fintechs so often misalign: banks protect what they have, while fintechs accept losses today for a bigger payoff tomorrow.
13:43: The Fault Line Diagnostic: Where Bank-Fintech Partnerships Really Fail
Amber walks through the brand new Travillian Bank-Fintech Fault Line Diagnostic she launched at Finovate, a quick tool that maps the five places these partnerships most commonly break down.
15:12: Looking Ahead: M&A, Confidence, and What’s Coming in H2 2026
Brian shares the vibes leaving conference season: credit is holding up, M&A is poised for a “Wild West” run per Brent Beardall of WaFd, and the next generation of bank leadership is real and ready.
17:28: Closing Vibes: Why We Still Love This Industry
Amber and Brian close on the same note they opened with: banking is full of passionate people doing hard work, and this team is happy to be in the middle of it.
Conference season is often where the real read on the year takes shape, somewhere between the keynotes, the side conversations, and the hallway debates that never make the panel slides. In this episode, Amber and Brian distill a month of that perspective into one candid conversation, balanced with the kind of lightness that makes a packed travel month survivable.
Want to talk talent, M&A, fintech partnerships, or where banking is headed next? Brian and Amber are always up for a conversation. Reach Brian at blove@travilliangroup.com or Amber at abuker@travilliangroup.com.
