Shhhhh... Sink was a Banker

On the campaign trail, Alex Sink does not make much of her days at Bank of America.

Perhaps it is the public hammering banks took during the financial crisis, but Sink mostly refers to herself as a “businesswoman and working mom.” Her supporters pick up the phrase and you can hear the political spin machine whirr.

It's understandable. After all, it was Bank of America that took $45 billion in TARP money, gave huge executive bonuses and saw its Chairman and CEO Ken Lewis forced out of office last year. Fair or not, it is the poster-bank for what went wrong. And Sink worked for Lewis.

But it is a shame, because that very acknowledgement reveals a banking career reaching near the top strata of American banking and a personality that is energetic, aggressive and bottom-line oriented.

Sink was part of the power structure as Charlotte, N.C.-based NCNB became NationsBank, which grew into Bank of America, which became the largest bank in the country. She worked with or for Hugh McColl Jr., legendary chairman and CEO of Bank of America, Lewis and Gene Taylor, vice chairman who put together most of the banking purchases for the bank when it grew to the size it is today.

And while not a visionary or mistress of the big deal, Sink's reputation is consistently referred to as being a “competent manager” or “a competent administrator,” strong at bringing in business and a good motivator of underlings.

“She was quite good at motivating people,” says McColl, speaking from his office on the 51st floor of the Bank of America tower in Charlotte, N.C. McColl is also founder and chairman of Falfurrias Capital Partners, which has invested in Naples-based bank-holding company TIB Financial Corp. through North American Financial Holdings.

Even bank regulators saw her that way.

“She was a competent administrator who oversaw a lot of growth in the bank's Florida operations during her tenure,” says Jim Gilkeson in an email interview. He was a federal regulator in the Risk Analysis Division of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and he's now a finance professor at the University of Central Florida. “B of A ran a good operation in Florida, and she was in charge of it.”

“She knows how to run a business,” adds BB&T's Florida president, Bill Klich, who has known and worked with Sink since the 1980s.

Southern multi-culturalist

Sink grew up in Mayberry — not really, but her Mount Airy, N.C. hometown was the model for the fictitious town on the Andy Griffith Show. Her farmer father taught her to balance the farm's checkbook when she was 10 and she's been a numbers girl ever since — including earning a math degree from Wake Forest University.

Going into banking early, Sink made steady impressions on her superiors. She started in 1974 at NCNB in North Carolina. McColl said her abilities were recognized early on.

When the bank opened its first New York operations, it sent Sink to head it. Although she came from what McColl describes as an “homogeneous” Southern culture, she was able to adapt to the multiculturalism of New York and successfully build the bank.

It was a challenge for the up-and-comer.

“While we were the largest bank in North Carolina, we were small by New York comparisons,” Sink said of the startup NCNB staff. “I set up production in an office with five people and started pounding the pavement.”

Sink began doing what would become her trademark: Getting involved with community organizations and making business contacts as a way of life.

It worked.

McColl agreed. “She did a very good job building that business,” he says in a Carolinian drawl similar to Sink's.

Such a good job that when the bank chose to move into the Florida market, it sent Sink to Miami to open the operation. McColl said she brought in a lot of business for the bank, building assets, making commercial loans and building relationships with the important Cuban community.

“I'll never forget the first time to Miami,” she says. “I fell in love with the place.”

But Miami also offered a stable of large, established banks, including Barnett Bank. It would take all of her rainmaker abilities to establish NCNB in the Miami market. She jumped in by becoming part of all the large community groups.

“She was able to integrate into the community immediately,” says Bill McBride, Sink's husband and the Democrat nominee for governor in 2002, a race won by Republican Jeb Bush.

She became involved in the chambers of commerce, the United Way and other organizations. Within a year, she became one of the most visible bankers in Miami. The daughter of a concert pianist and an accomplished piano player herself, she was a member of the group that founded the New World School of the Arts in Miami in 1984.

“We were very aggressive,” she says. “The market needed competition.”

Her aggressive style fit the NCNB/NationsBank/Bank of America personality.

“We wanted smart, energetic, aggressive people,” McColl says, and Sink fit that mold. But he also pointed out that early on, patience was a weak point.

“When she was younger, she got frustrated — impatient — easily,” he says. “I think she has grown.”

Banking behemoth

The bank promoted her in 1993 to head the growing Florida operations, where she continued her outside organizational involvement at a state level. She was even on the board of the Florida Chamber of Commerce — an organization that recently voted to endorse Scott based on the candidates' differing policy prescriptions for the economy.

Sink's numbers in Florida make the case for her banking ability.

While she was president, the bank's branches grew to 800, deposits tripled from $13.7 billion to $43 billion six years later, and up to 30,000 people worked under her at Bank of America.

Part of the growth came through the acquisition of Jacksonville-based Barnett Bank, which had about 600 branches and deposits totaling $34.8 billion

But there were hiccups along the way.

In 1997, NationsBank merged with Barnett Bank — the largest Florida-based bank at the time — and created the largest financial institution in the state. Not everything went smoothly with the merger.

The decision to start a new computer system in one day at all the branches wreaked havoc with customers. Long lines ensued at the banks. When Sink was supposed to be enjoying a celebratory cake, she ended up outside walking along the lines of cars at a Tampa branch's drive-through — apologizing.

McColl says the computer decision was not Sink's, and the person who made it in North Carolina was later let go. In fact, Sink was at headquarters during the merger months and was brought back after to run the merged bank — just in time for the computer disaster.

The purchase of Barnett Bank also brought with it EquiCredit, a subsidiary that specialized in making high-interest loans to low-income borrowers — a sort of forerunner to subprime loans. EquiCredit, and NationsBank's own NationsCredit, were accused of predatory lending before a congressional committee in 2000.

The Atlanta Legal Aid Society claimed in congressional testimony that those subsidiaries targeted minority communities, the elderly and women. As the negative publicity and complaints grew, the two entities were quietly closed.

In 1998, NationsBank bought California-based BankAmerica Corp., the bank holding company for Bank of America, for $64.8 billion and took the Bank of America name. It was the largest bank purchase in history at the time, creating an institution with $570 billion in assets.

Sink was naturally made president of Bank of America's Florida operations. A footprint of the bank's locations shows Florida to be one of its most dominant markets.

Inclusive and involved

Most people associated with Sink describe her management style as collective in terms of gathering varied input before making a decision.

“Her management style is inclusive. She seeks other opinions. I like that,” McColl says.

Husband McBride calls her style “collaborative” and “demanding.”

“She talks to a lot of people and asks their opinion,” McBride says. “She is a very demanding leader. You've got to work hard and try hard.”

Sink says the team metaphor may be overused, but she believed in it and put it in practice. It was a primary lesson she says she learned from McColl.

“He is a tremendous leader of people, a believer in teamwork,” she says. “He would say, 'We're in business and we ultimately answer to the shareholders...but it starts taking care of our people.'”

She took it all to heart and made it a part of her, getting involved with so many organizations.

“When I was a leader at the company, the company valued and expected us to be leaders in the community,” she says.

Notice even in these terms, however, she refers to Bank of America as a company, and not as a bank.

Right candidate, wrong opponent

Sink seems like the ideal Democratic candidate for a state government dominated by Republicans.

She was a top-tier banker at the nation's largest bank, she is a relative outsider in an anti-incumbent year and she is a fundraising machine.

But Sink is not running against Bill McCollum, her expected Republican opponent, who is a career politician, government insider and mediocre fundraiser.

That was a favorable matchup for her. Instead, she is up against Rick Scott, an even more successful businessman who is even more of an outsider in his first run for office and is willing to write his campaign a check for what is needed.

Many of her strong suits got trumped with Scott's upset primary win, leaving her almost entirely flailing at the Medicaid fraud charges, for which HCA/Columbia paid a huge fine. Scott was not charged, but it happened while he was at the helm and he resigned in the wake of the scandal.

What Sink does not mention, almost ever, is banking or Bank of America.

She traded on her “business” background in the race first to set herself apart from McCollum and now to blunt Scott's acumen in the area.

She picked up the support of state Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami. The term-limited Republican touted Sink's “respected business experience” in his endorsement — again steering clear of mentioning banking or Bank of America.

While the endorsement was heralded by the Sink campaign, it was hardly shocking as Villalobos is also endorsing Gov. Charlie Crist in his independent bid for the U.S. Senate and state Sen. Dan Gelber, a Miami Democrat running for attorney general.

But there is no voluntary mention of Bank of America. In Sink's perception, Bank of America changed after she left.

“When I retired, we were still requiring down payments on mortgages,” she deadpans. “The culture of the company has changed.”

Of course, there also is the political rationale for distancing herself from Bank of America's tarnished name. On the campaign trail, even in such urban settings as Miami, she is the farmer girl, the working wife, the working mom, the PTA member — not the successful banker.

In an interview with the Business Review, Sink denies shying away from speaking about her banking career.

“I'm very, very proud of the opportunity to talk about my accomplishments,” she says.

And then she adds an enlightening footnote: Reporters never ask her about it on the campaign trail.

Too bad.