Career Tracks: 30-Year Veteran:'I've Always Created a New Job'

Cilla Shaw remembers the day Columbus Bank and Trust Co. got its first automated teller machine.

Ms. Shaw, now vice president of alternative delivery for the lead bank of Columbus, Ga.-based Synovus Financial Corp., was a wide-eyed young teller on Nov. 14, 1972. She recently reminisced about her immediate fascination with the bulky device that banking officials referred to as "newfangled."

She soon learned the ATM "inside and out," she said in an interview. When banking officials realized they needed a system for balancing ATM transactions, they turned to Ms. Shaw to set it up. Though the transactions were automated as far as customers were concerned, bank personnel had to record each one manually.

"It didn't come with balancing instructions," she recalled. "It was a balancing nightmare."

It also was the turning point in Ms. Shaw's career. Now 52, she has spent three decades helping Synovus make advances in alternative delivery of retail banking products.

In her current role, Ms. Shaw is responsible for management of ATMs, personal computer banking, smart cards, and other advanced products in the 34-bank network of $8.8 billion-asset Synovus.

She remembers being at times stymied by traditionalists in the bank who were reluctant to embrace new technology. In later years, she scrambled to keep up with changes in technology. Her longevity is largely a tribute to her ability to adapt and the zeal that repeatedly drove her to carve out a place for herself.

Ms. Shaw, who this month will have been with the bank 30 years, distinguished herself in an industry where longevity and institutional knowledge are not always valued or nurtured.

As the banking industry consolidates, midlevel management ranks are increasingly populated with a new breed of young bankers who have expertise in technology, sales, and other nonbanking cultures.

"Once people could put 20 years of banking experience on their resume and that gave them credibility. But that has changed," said Dennis W. Burnette, an executive search consultant with Sanford Rose Associates, Atlanta. "People that came into the industry 30 years ago generally do not have the skill sets, as well as the attitude, that is a requirement to get the job done today."

Surrounded by many younger colleagues, Ms. Shaw is well aware of the trend. But she prides herself on being able to broaden her role within the company without benefit of a college degree or any special training. Her banking education came on the job-including attendance at conferences and trade shows-and through networking, she said.

"Since 1976, I've never been in a job that was held by someone else. I've always created a new job," she said. "The key is to look for opportunity, grab hold of an idea, and see if you can make it work."

When Ms. Shaw joined the Columbus, Ga., bank in 1967, her primary aim was to find a job that she could work from "10 to 2," so she could also focus on her husband and two young children. She started as a switchboard operator and soon became a teller.

The ATM assignment seemed her true calling. She became engrossed in all aspects of the new system: profitability issues, geographic placements, functionality.

As resident ATM expert, Ms. Shaw moved into a systemwide training role, then into branch administration. When ATM operations were moved under the same organizational umbrella as bank cards, Ms. Shaw characteristically didn't hesitate to learn about emerging products like check cards and TravelMoney, Visa's "electronic travelers check."

She added still more to her repertoire last year when the company introduced PC banking.

"You can't just sit there and wait for it to happen," she said. "It's taken a lot of hard work and sometimes long hours on my part to get where I am. That 10-to-2 deal changed drastically over the years."

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