For two decades Leader Bank has evolved and expanded its focus from residential lending to community banking to supporting small businesses and beyond. Founder and CEO Sushil Tuli joins host Scott Barboza for a conversation on Leader Bank’s origins, its impact on the small business community during COVID, and thoughts on the future.

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Episode Transcript

Scott Barboza
Welcome to the Building Interest podcast, presented by Leader Bank, a series of free-flowing conversations on a wide range of banking and money related subjects. We’re here to discuss all the issues that impact your financial future. Want to buy a home, start a small business, secure your financial future? Or maybe you want to maximize your savings ability or get your budget in order, we can help our talks with experts and influencers across the world of banking, we’ll set you in the right direction. I’m your host, Scott Barboza. Let’s get to it.

Hello everybody, welcome aboard another edition of the Building Interest podcast, I am distinctly privileged today to have Sushil Tuli with me here at our Seaport Innovation District branch once again. Sushil, we really wanted to, obviously, in Episode 1, we talked to your son, Jay, talked a little bit about the 20th anniversary. But you know, it was really great talking to Jay, going through some of the family memories and the times that you have shared together. As a family, I really want to bring this back to the beginning, in some senses, because I think your family story is so uniquely American. And so very interesting. I know you came to this country from India in 1978. We’re 20 years into Leader Bank now. Could you ever imagine having sitting in this location in the midst of Boston? I mean, just walk me through that what the what that life experience has been like for you and your family?

Sushil Tuli
So Scott, first of all, thank you so much for having us.

Scott Barboza
Yeah, it’s my pleasure.

Sushil Tuli
And welcome to Leader Bank. So you know I came from India in 1978. Just like everybody, every immigrant, [this is the] land of opportunity and is looking for new opportunities. And I got my first job in a bank. And I liked it and just worked through the ranks in my bank. And in 1986, I decided that I want to open my own business. So you want a mortgage company? And we opened one, made it very successful. I made it successful buying, taking care of first time homebuyers. Immigrants, right to make sure the people who need a mortgage right, I can help them out. And during that time, I was appointed on a major Advisory Board, Technology and Leadership Award, all kinds of things. But in the late 90s, I said, “OK, enough of mortgage company, I need to do something else.” And I decided to open a bank. Everybody I talked to that I’m going to open a bank and they will look at me and they’ll say, “What do you mean open a bank? People don’t open banks.”

Scott Barboza
Banks have been around for a very long time. And they tend to stay in business for a very long time. So it’s kind of a little bit of an insular kind of kind of world.

Sushil Tuli
And I remember one of my friend John Fanciullo, who later worked with me, and I told John, I said, I want to open a bank. And he said, “What do you want?” I said, in 10 years, I wanted to be a $1 billion dollar bank. And he looked at me and he says, “a lot of people try to do that. But it doesn’t happen.” I said, we’re gonna make it happen. So we got a license from OCC to open a bank. We went through the process to get the FDIC approval, took about two and a half years. Once I have all the approvals, we opened our first branch in East Arlington, with $6.5 million dollars in capital deposits. And honestly, I had no idea that — one, that I still will be running the bank 20 years later, and will grow to more than $3 billion.

Scott Barboza
It’s it’s absolutely amazing.

Sushil Tuli
It’s one of those things, you dream about it, you want to do it, you are motivated and determined to do it. It happens if you’re motivated and determined.

Scott Barboza
I like that, that you could put that on a motivational poster like you have up in the office. I really love that. You know, one thing you brought up Sushil, and this is the 20th anniversary, we just, you know, are really kicking off a lot of the festivities this year, how much of that is very much a celebration of the workforce and everybody that is come together to help, you know, you realize those, those dreams that you had?

Sushil Tuli
Every year is just celebration for us because it’s team members. And when when we sit down at the end of the year, I will make a three year business plan. And in that plan, we say, “OK, where the bank is going to be three years from now?” But in order to get to that point, who are the team members we need? Who’s going to get us there? And we’ve been doing it since since 20 years. It’s just really a celebration. It’s thank you to all the people. First of all, thank you to my founders of Leader Bank, who believed in me that wanted to be the founders, they want to invest money with me. Then , the Board of Directors, we have very unique, very intelligent board members who challenge us, but at the same time they support us. And they have an important dynamic. And then for any CEO, they need to build a great team around them. And I built a great team. And then Jay came to work with me. And then Jay proved himself to the Board, to the shareholders to the management, of course. He’s my son, but he’s gonna work hard, and you’re going to show to them, that he can make things happen. And then Jay was promoted to President a few years ago. And he’s building the right team around him. And just just look at you [to Scott], if it was Sushil Tuli President, this [podcast] wouldn’t be happening. We’re totally different, old fashioned. So he’s building the right team, the people that’s going to take Leader Bank into the next next 20 years.

Scott Barboza
Give us a little bit of a lens into the the family dynamic in that regard. Obviously, you’re a family first, with business also intermingled with that. How many opportunities do you have in the course of you know, family get-togethers when it’s, you know, a weekend and everybody’s just hanging out at the house or whatever … How much is it sometimes difficult to kind of, you know, suss out business from the personal and vice versa?

Sushil Tuli
So initially, when Jay started working with me, we used to talk bank at work, I will talk bank at home, right, but then we decided this is defeating the purpose. At home, we will not talk about bank at all. And when we are at the bank, we don’t just talk about home.

Scott Barboza
I think that that’s a good kind of separation, too, because I think if those things commingle they can get a little, you know, not knowing what’s where

Sushil Tuli
I feel the other family members, they get bored …

Scott Barboza
Yeah, “When’s dinner, actually?”

Sushil Tuli
I have seven grandchildren. And so the family dynamic is when we get together, when the grandkids come home, there’s nothing else, that’s the focus, to spend time with them.

Scott Barboza
I think it’s much more fun being a grandfather to than having your own kids?

Sushil, when you touched on it a little bit earlier, and I think that what is part of what’s so interesting about the the Genesis story behind Leader Bank, as we know it today, is that you really kind of identified a niche. And you said you wanted to reach out to you know, first-time homebuyers. And obviously the Residential Lending aspect of the business has, you know, exceeded records year after year coming out of the pandemic and rolling into ’22. I mean, we’ve seen really growth that’s, that’s pretty unprecedented. How much and how important is it to maintain that service level? Really, you know, especially in the home-buying process, it is an intimately personal experience. It’s one of the, you know, really, if you want to call it a milepost or a linchpin experience in your entire life, how important is it to remain, even as the organization has grown?

Sushil Tuli
That commitment to really building relationships on that one level, the bank was founded to help immigrants, low-income homebuyers to buy their dream home. And every time somebody sent me a thank you note, I felt so good that I made a difference in their life. That’s yeah, I still believe in the same right. When I talk to loan originators when we hire them, I tell them that you need to take care. You can do a lot of loans, but when you are helping somebody, there aren’t too many people willing to help who is a low-income homebuyers and immigrants. That’s all right. We want to continue to do that. Whichever neighborhood it is, we want to go there, we want to help people out to be a homeowner there. But at the same time, we’re doing the same thing with small business owners, like last year, during the PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] program. Where all the big banks said, “Oh, we want to get to our big clients and they need a bank to know we want to do the smallest loan we can. The smallest loan we did was $1,000. It takes the same amount of time to do $1,000 loan as a $200,000. But the $1,000 loan, that person we did it for, it’s a small bakery shop, and they’re gonna stay in business. They’re gonna keep one employee right there. That’s where my pride is.

Scott Barboza
When we talk about again, I think I used the term in Jay’s episode as well, you know, unprecedented times — it’s become cliche. I feel bad almost using it. But truly in this sense, you know, we’ve had some conversations with other folks inside of the bank. You know, when the PPP program was initially introduced, basically, the bank had about a day to get everything ready to go as people were going to start coming in with applications. Have you ever seen … I mean, this is almost unprecedented in the history of this Nation, in Western Civilization, if you will, such a quick mobilization. Can you talk about a little bit about that time and just the work, I mean, really dogged determination that it took for the entire team to make sure that the bank was ready to be able to service those people in a time of critical need?

Sushil Tuli
When the PPP program was announced, and the SBA said, “OK, this is the day you can start taking applications,” a lot of banks were not ready. They didn’t know what to do, how to do it right. We developed technologies, so that at 12 o’clock, Midnight, six of the technology people, myself, we were ready to start taking applications. And honestly, before like 7 [a.m.] there were about 20 people who applied for PPP loans. All of us, if you needed a PPP loan, you could come to Leader Bank, and we’re gonna give it to you, whether you are a client of ours, or you’re not a client of ours, we’re gonna help you. Whereas many of the other banks, they said, “OK, if you’re not our client, we are not going to help you. If you’re client, you have to have so much minimum deposit.” No, just you need money. If you can save some person’s job, if you can stay in business, we’re gonna do it.

Scott Barboza
Exactly, it really kind of comes back to roost in that way. Right? You take care of it, the way you’d take care of yourself. It’s kind of that Golden Rule kind of …

Sushil Tuli
You’ll help somebody out.

Scott Barboza
The numbers when, you know, we were talking before — we don’t want to, you know, get too bogged down in numbers — but the numbers are actually quite staggering. You know, when we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that were accessed through that PPP program, but then also in kind because of that, you know, I think Leader has really carved out a very strong position for itself within the SBA community.

Sushil Tuli
And that recognition has really come back. We were the Top Retail SBA lender last year, with a top SBA lenders to veterans. We have been top SBA lender since December 2002. When we do SBA loans, it doesn’t matter who it is.

Scott Barboza
Absolutely. Just talk a little bit, you know, more from a logistical perspective and Sushil, if somebody is in one of those situations, and they’re starting your own businesses — again, one of those great adventures of life that can be offered to anybody, how do they go about that process? How do they come into the bank and really kind of get that ball rolling?

Sushil Tuli
So we have a team who works with small business owners. So once they come and apply for a loan with us, or they even discuss with us, we even don’t care if you apply for a loan or not. If you need help, you come discuss your business plan with us. I will see if they will tell you, “OK, yes, we can help you, who will show them where they can go whether they can go to Mass Growth Capital Corporation. I was on their Board, and you can get loans from them. You can be wherever and we are not going to say we cannot help you, but you don’t know where to go. We will help them out. But like more than 90%, chances are we’re gonna help them out. I get involved in those meetings myself because I understand. And sometimes, you know, I do coaching myself. I’ve done coaching to serve any business in and then the goal is to help them succeed and become a bigger business.

Scott Barboza
I can only imagine how many of those instances you’ve probably had through the years now where, you know, people have gone through that iterative process of, you know, “Hey, I have an idea for this, I don’t really know how to go it.” I mean, I assume that’s gotta be one of the most rewarding experiences.

Sushil Tuli
I do it. I mean because of pandemic there is less people that come to me. It used to be like, at least once in a month, that I’m sitting down with somebody interested, watching them, helping them …

Scott Barboza
How do you see that going forward? Do you see that coming back? Do you see that ratcheting up as I think a lot of people coming out through the pandemic, they’re looking at their life and in a different way. And maybe, you know, for all intents and purposes, we’re all human at the end of the day, and you know, maybe this is the opportunity to say, “Hey, I’m trying something new in my life.” You know, a lot of what our life used to be looks very different from what it used to be and as to what it is now, or it could be in the future. Are you kind of starting to see that the entrepreneurial spirit kind of, you know, come back?

Sushil Tuli
I met a gentleman last week, and he’s a medical professional. He said, “I want to build real estate.” I own one house, but I want to be very aggressive. He said, “I want to have $100 million worth of portfolio. OK? And in three years.” If that’s your dream, it will happen, but don’t think it’s going to happen in two or three years. But this is how it’s gonna happen. And we’ll hold your hand, we will help them. I have many clients who started with this — small businesses, small properties. And they become like, they have a lot of properties. Now, one example I remember when I opened the bank, somebody walked in my office, a local business person. And he said, “You’re a new business man, I just want to know, what is this bank about?” We got to know the guy, who owned one business in Arlington. He owns five, six now in various time, similar businesses and he owns a lot of real estate. And he has become a good friend now. What I believe in is that you create a spokesperson for your own business. Somebody at their happiest day, they’re going to go out, they’re going to talk about you. They’re gonna talk about you.

Scott Barboza
Right? Yeah, that’s the best way to grow anything truly. Sushil, I know, you probably don’t like to talk about yourself all that much. But there is something that we do need to bring up before before we move on. And this is really something that is is quite amazing as you lined up the entire story, kind of one of those great mileposts. At the end of last year, you were named a Class Director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. You know, for all people that may be listening that are in the industry, they understand the prestige that comes with that. And for casual listeners that are trying to get themselves into the world of banking, they might not be quite as familiar with what that means. But for everybody in the industry that is quite frankly, to put it bluntly, a pretty big deal. Pretty big deal. Again, is that one of those moments in your life, where you kind of look back over the accumulation of what Leader Bank has become? Do you take that opportunity to to see that and to understand that the recognition from your peers as a respected leader within the community, both in Boston and abroad? Do you take a moment to take pause in that and kind of, you know, just to celebrate that?

Sushil Tuli
Absolutely. Over the years, I was appointed by Governor Charlie Baker, on the Mass. Housing Board. And then I served on the board of Mass Growth Capital Corporation. I serve on the non-profit board board of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. And then last year, I got the call from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And they said they had a Class A Board member position coming up. And they were considering me for the position. I was amazed out of like 150 banks, that they reached out to me. Of course, I was very excited about it. You have to submit your application, your bio, your details and things. And then then I was nominated. And then all the bank CEOs are asked, they have to vote. That was the biggest honor that other bankers, they felt that, “OK, Sushil Tuli is the right person who can represent the banks at the front of the Bank. So in January, it was announced that I have been appointed a Class A director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. It’s a three-year term. It’s a great learning experience. I’m learning a lot. I’m meeting new people and learning how the system works by the Federal Reserve Bank. And I’m very proud that I got appointed to this position.

Scott Barboza
It’s amazing. Sushil, before we go here, I have to ask you one last question, because I asked this to Jay as well, obviously. Anniversaries, birthdays, things of that nature, you kind of take stock. You look back, you look forward. We’ll end this by looking forward, you know, on the 20th anniversary. Now, if we were to sit across each other in another 20 years, at the 40th anniversary, where do you see Leader Bank? Where do you see this organization going? And where do you see it, you know, moving into different levels perhaps?

Sushil Tuli
So one thing I know is 20 years from now, I will not be the CEO. But I think the in the initially the growth is slower. When I open the bank, it takes time to build capital to grow right now. Now, it took us 20 years to get to $3 billion. It won’t take us 20 years to get to $6 billion. In 20 years from now, Leader Bank is one of the major banks in in Massachusetts, it could be up in the whole northeast region there and providing employment opportunities to many employees. See we have 450 employees [now], and that could be 1000s of us, but the values of Leader Bank will not change even 20 years from now.

Scott Barboza
That’s the North Star to keep. I like it. Sushil, this has been a real distinct pleasure of mine.

Sushil Tuli
It’s great to have you here.

Scott Barboza
Come by any time, obviously, we’ll be hanging out here. But thanks again for taking the opportunity.

Sushil Tuli
Thanks so much, Scott. And I’m gonna take you on that offer because I’ll be coming here. But I really appreciate you. It means a lot to me that what you’re doing for Leader, it is valuable to us as the management team. And also as you interview, like you interviewed Sean [Valiton], you interview some other people, you will interview Loan Officers, it shows that Leader Bank cares about its community. We serve our Board, our employees, and everybody else.

Scott Barboza
That’s part of the fun part for me, as somebody who likes to just get to know people and talk face to face. Obviously, coming out of the last couple of years, we haven’t had many of those opportunities, so the more we get to do that, and want to just take the listeners along that journey, and this is a great place to to begin. So thanks again. Sushil. We’ll do it again soon.

Sushil Tuli
Absolutely, we’ll do that. Thank you.

Scott Barboza
For more information on today’s subject, visit LeaderBank.com. In addition to past episodes, you can also find our corresponding blog entries there for more insights. This podcast is a production of Leader Bank, NA — Equal Housing Lender, Member FDIC, NMLS #449250.