#49 Regions' Bryan Ford's mantra is 'momentum matters'

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Bryan Ford has spent 19 years at Regions Bank pushing a singular narrative: treasury management isn't a back-office utility—it's the heartbeat of the client relationship.

"Treasury management allows us to have a primary relationship with that business owner and the folks that work at that company so that we become embedded in their day-to-day activities," Ford said. "That's different than just a transactional account."

As EVP and head of corporate sales and treasury management, Ford leads a team of 295 across treasury, payments, and liquidity. The whole group operates under what he calls a "Momentum Matters" framework.

That's less a motivational slogan and more an effort to strip away friction by shortening decision cycles and being ruthless about what the bank doesn't pursue. "Speed to market, speed to revenue, and consistency of execution all compound over time," he explained. "And it's not just about moving fast. It's about moving together."

That focus powered an aggressive product rollout in 2025. Regions launched Embedded Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Finance, partnering with Koxa, to stream bank data directly into client ERPs—a move that secured a 2025 Datos Impact Gold Award. Ford's team also launched Healthcare Receivables Services with MediStreams, automating remittance posting and explanation-of-benefits digitization for hospitals and physician groups.

Regions also became the first bank to offer the full Visa Commercial Pay suite, adding Visa Spend Clarity for real-time spend controls and analytics, and advanced the rollout of Paymode for Regions iTreasury, a business-to-business vendor payment solution that shifts clients away from paper and ACH toward intelligent digital disbursements.

All of the Treasury Management group's innovations have made the division so important to Regions that top executives credit it as a source of growth.

Ford believes trade finance could do much the same for the 55-year old bank. More than other finance areas, trade finance is still mired in manual operations. He believes improving documentation flows, visibility, and speed could have real financial impact for clients operating globally. Ford is pushing his team to be in the lead of technical capabilities as the early move toward digitization of trade finance gains critical mass. "We're trying to be ahead of the game so that when adoption starts to coalesce, we're there."

What ties all of it together, Ford said, is what he asks of his team every day: clarity, confidence, and purpose. "What I try to do is make the progress visible," he said. "When teams see their ideas turn into real solutions used by their clients, that creates an energy that you just can't manufacture."