Then & Now: Longtime banker looks forward to retirement

Editor’s Note: The following story appeared in the March 25 issue of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal. “Then & Now” is a profile of a past member of the Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class.

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During a recent interview, a reporter asked longtime banking executive Roger Holroyd for the best advice he imparts to young professionals just beginning their careers.

Holroyd, 61, recalled guidance from semi-retired Arvest Bank executive Cliff Gibbs, his mentor and a former supervisor.

“Don’t run the bank by the numbers,” Holroyd said. “My background is in accounting and finance, so we’re kind of wired to try to run things by the numbers.”

Numbers are essential in managing any business, especially banking. But Gibbs’ implication, Holroyd explained, is that numbers fall short in measuring the most critical part of any business — people.

“It’s an old adage, but it’s excellent advice,” Holroyd said. “If we take care of each other as people within the bank, the numbers will take care of themselves.”

Holroyd said offering advice and being a sounding board for younger bankers has been rewarding during his career, which entered a new chapter recently.

On April 2, Holroyd retired after 31 years working for Fayetteville-chartered Arvest Bank, the past five as president of the bank’s Fort Smith market. Mike Jacimore, who joined Arvest in 2007 as community president for the Arkansas River Valley region before becoming sales manager in 2011, has been announced as his successor.

“I have been very blessed to work for this company,” Holroyd said. “More than anything, I have loved the people I’ve worked with.”

During his more than three decades with Arvest — the state’s second-largest bank with over $27 billion in assets — Holroyd’s leadership style and easy-going personality propelled him up the chain of command.

A Kansas native, Holroyd earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Harding University and a master’s in finance at Texas A&M. He is also a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking at LSU.

After college, he spent four years with a bank in Texas and two years in public accounting before returning to Arkansas in 1993 to join Arvest in Siloam Springs.

In 2000, he was a vice president and commercial lender when the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal selected him as a Forty Under 40 honoree. In March 2012, the bank named him market president in Siloam Springs, where he was involved in numerous civic endeavors, including as a school board member for the Siloam Springs School District, an officer for the United Way of Northwest Arkansas and the Siloam Springs Chamber of Commerce.

In January 2019, Holroyd accepted a promotion to president and CEO of the bank in Fort Smith and the Arkansas River Valley. That market is one of the bank’s 14 locally managed markets in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., with $1.11 billion in deposits as of June 30, 2023, Arvest has the second largest market share (18.61%) in the Fort Smith market.

“I’ve been very thankful to work for the same company,” Holroyd said. He’s also thankful for the lessons learned during some of the most challenging times of his career, particularly the financial crisis of 2008 and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At the end of the day, the character of the people we do business with counts more than anything,” he said. “As a borrower or a banker, most people step up and try to do the right thing when they’re under financial stress. That character, that commitment to do the right thing, is typically the difference in whether somebody was successful in coming through a hard time.”

Holroyd and his wife, Bonita, have loved living in Fort Smith “and could easily stay,” he said. But they will move back to Northwest Arkansas later this year. They still have their home between Siloam Springs and Springdale, and two adult children are both married and living in the region.

“Being closer to our kids is something we are looking forward to,” Holroyd said.

In addition to traveling “quite a bit” with his wife, Holroyd will continue working on a project for the bank’s holding company in a part-time consulting role.

“Just a few hours each week,” he said. “That’ll let me step into retirement a little bit more gingerly.”