One of the things that makes Greenleaf Trust unique is our talented team. They are deeply committed to the work they do for our clients and worth meaningful recognition for their achievements. At the end of the year, we announced the following 29 promotions. These were teammates from throughout the organization that successfully executed customized purposeful growth plans with their coaches. Promotions are always based on merit and impact at Greenleaf Trust, not time in role. Needless to say, I am extremely proud to recognize these teammates and share their new titles with you.

I am also proud to recognize this year’s winner of the President’s Award. Each year since 2014, I present the President’s Award to the teammate that has made the greatest impact to the organization during the year. I am the only vote. This year that award was given to Salena Al-Saadi, Assistant Vice President, Senior CRM Engineer. In 2023, Salena helped to lead, develop, and implement an extensive workflow platform that facilitates the onboarding of new clients and administration of existing client relationships. During the process, she took the initiative to learn new skills like writing programming code, mentored others, and drove innovative solutions on other projects. Congratulations, Salena!

Finally, I created the Executive Council in 2014 to help me strategically lead our company. It was important to have a trusted team around me that embodied our core values, were exceptional proven leaders, always considered what was best for our company in their decision making, put others first, thought strategically and diversely, and drove impact.

With continuous improvement as a core value, we recognize what got us here will not necessarily get us to where we want to go. This applies to the leadership of our company.

That’s why I am excited to announce that in 2024 I will be adding Karen Baldwin (Chief Human Resources Officer) and Steve McKiddy (Chief Financial Officer) as members of the Executive Council. Karen and Steve are valuable members of our leadership team who teammates respect and rely on. Together with myself, Dan Rinzema (Chief Client Officer), Tom Drews (Chief Operating Officer), and Jim Gray (Chief Strategy Officer) we will work as a team and with the entire team to lead the strategic growth of our company.

Happy holidays! I hope yours were filled with joy.