Excited Associates

What sets us apart starts with our vision: To be the best place to work and the best financial services firm in the Southeast.

Pinnacle’s Culture See how our work environment makes us unique.

It’s straightforward, bold and gives our people a north star for every decision they make. Our associates are the key to executing on this vision, because the firm’s culture lives in them.

Our culture is what makes all the best bankers in our markets want to work here. We hired 107 experienced bankers in 2018, many from much larger banks. It’s not just about having fun with friends at the office or company parties – though that is certainly important. We give them a great workplace where they have the freedom and the resources to serve their clients better, without micromanagement.

Our foundation is designed around this. Fundamental systems and procedures that other banks take as rote have been uniquely designed at Pinnacle to support a people-centric approach.

• Hiring Team leaders – not HR – recruit happy, successful people who are experienced and don’t need middle managers. It drives down turnover in the system for a better, more consistent client experience. It gives us a distinct advantage in winning new business and in credit quality.

• Incentives Everyone is working toward the same goals designed for long-term success. It fosters a spirit of collaboration instead of competition among financial advisors, credit and support.
• Equity Everyone is an owner. It puts 100 percent of our associates in the mindset of doing the right thing for the client, the firm and the shareholders because we all have skin in the game.
• Credit Our credit process forgoes committees and encourages easy collaboration with financial advisors and credit officers to make the right decision for the client and the firm. It gives relief to bankers who are used to a long, draconian credit process. Our signature system increases accountability for lenders while being much more responsive to clients.
• Human Resources The team is built to be nimble and respond quickly with support for new associates in an environment of aggressive recruiting.
• Operational Teams Because of the common incentive program across the whole firm and spirit of collaboration that fosters, operational teams like IT, loan operations, corporate communications and others are driven by a desire to support our financial advisors and help them be successful.

Leadership At Pinnacle Watch this playlist to see how our associates take ownership.

Our complex web of interconnected, symbiotic systems is difficult to replicate at other banks in our class. Others may claim a focus on people, but any changes they attempt to the underlying foundations of how they operate would be slow and surface-level.

If our competitors were to try what we have done successfully at Pinnacle, it would be a program-of-the-month bolted on to the same old bureaucracy. For that reason, they are vulnerable in every market where we operate, always at risk of losing their best bankers and clients to us.

And because our entire firm is carefully designed to be a distinctive place to work, our people love what they do. They are immersed in a culture that engages them in big and small ways. That engagement drives happiness and excitement in their work, which is then passed along to clients through service that clearly stands out from our competitors.