MY CORE BELIEFS

I believe:

• That every client deserves my full understanding and attention before they need my advice or services.
• That my clients should get the expertise they need, not just the expertise I have to provide.
• That risk management is what we do, and that it takes a comprehensive approach -- the right data, the right tools, the right education, the right policy, the right environment -- to optimize risk management.
• That culture matters. When different levels, different functions, or different locations within the organization have different understandings of "how we do things around here", your institution will be more wasteful, less efficient, less effective, and exposed to greater risk.
• That mimicking your competition cannot get you better results than your competition. Without the courage to go beyond aping "best practices" to designing paths to "best outcomes", you will never be a market leader.
• That communication is Job #1 at every level of your organization. No matter how much time and money you put into devising better strategies and designing more effective business practices, those strategies and practices do not matter unless they are internalized by the people on the front lines.
• That teaching better ways of doing things demands clear, effective, engaging, and focused delivery, whether in a seminar, a meeting, a convention, a self-study course, or an article or white paper.

SOME COMMON QUESTIONS

A few questions come up repeatedly with new clients:

How can I "test drive" Jeff Judy?

Whether I am working with you as a consultant or as a trainer (or both), my ability to formulate and effectively share ideas, to communicate, is what brings value to your institution. And you have plenty of opportunities to "test drive" my ideas, my philosophy, and my communication skills on this site, with links to more than one hundred articles I have written in the last few years.

Please visit my "Free Articles" section to start exploring my ideas, and my ability to express those ideas clearly.

How do you help institutions achieve their goals?

I provide both consulting and training services in several key areas. To consistently achieve good credit outcomes, a bank needs:

• Front-line staff who know the fundamentals of credit analysis, structure, and more;
• Consistent application of key strategies at all levels, locations, and functions of the institution;
• Effective communication from bank leadership, whether capturing guidance in a living, effective credit policy, or developing better communication methods to reinforce the most effective culture;
• High quality data and analysis to manage risk, allocate reserves, and to prepare for where the portfolio will be in the future.

With my team of associates, I can help in every one of these areas.

Who are the "Associates"?

My Associates are an integral part of my business, and appropriate players may play key roles in any client project. I have worked with each of my associates for many years, so you can be confident that they have been called in to provide specific expertise and skills. You can learn more about how I deploy my associates, along with the backgrounds of the key players on my team, at my Associates page.

I never call in associates just to delegate work that would be better done by me. My associates provide specialized knowledge and skills in areas from technology to process and policy consulting to writing, communication, and training. They are all independent professionals, which allows me to leverage these resources without the expense of maintaining a full-time staff. It enables you to reduce time invested in calling several places when one call to me can get you headed in the right direction.

What consulting services are in greatest demand with your clients?

My clients seek my advice on a wide range of topics, but among the more common consulting issues are:

• Culture issues, including culture assessments, coaching on effective communication approaches, and curriculum development to address "culture gaps."
• Credit policy, to ensure that policy and process are active, effective contributors to success rather than being irrelevant, or even hindering success.
• Risk Management to ensure that risk rating systems are effective and providing quality data, as well as advising clients on selecting and applying portfolio analysis models.
• Employee education, helping clients to determine their knowledge and skills gaps, to identify training solutions, and where necessary, to develop new courses and even complete curricula to enhance employee performance.

What do you teach?

Much of my time is spent in the classroom, in webinars and conference calls, and in conferences and conventions dealing with just about every aspect of the credit process.

From fundamentals of accounting through credit analysis to structure, monitoring, problems loans, portfolio management, and more, if it deals with credit, I have taught it.

Shorter courses provide overviews of fundamental issues, such as "terminal risk analysis" to track portfolio risk profiles; characteristics of and practical steps toward effective credit policy; or why culture matters and what it takes to develop an effective culture at your institution.

You can find out much more about my teaching activities under the "Training Services" tab.

We do not want generic training, we want training in our language, processes, etc. Can you provide that?

Yes. Many clients ask me to customize my training to reflect their vocabulary, their organizational structure, their processes, their forms, and so on. Just about anything I teach can be customized, for a fee that reflects the extent of that customization and the time allowed to complete the revisions.

Some banks have more comprehensive needs, on the one hand, or more specialized ones, on the other. That's why I provide curriculum development services, putting together a more complete sequence of training tailored to your institution's needs. And I also develop individual courses to reflect specific needs of various kinds.