Jeffrey is a founder and a Managing Partner of Artisan Advisors, LLC, a premier consulting firm, which was formed to serve the financial industry, community banks and credit unions.  Since 2009, Jeff has advised and assisted C-suite level officers and their boards of directors on a variety of management, financial, operational and regulatory matters, with an emphasis on strategic planning, financial forecasting, risk management practices and capital planning.

Jeff currently serves as a board member of a high-performing, $1 billion asset size, privately held community bank, and as an advisory board member for a family-owned $300 million asset size community bank. He is a former director of a $16 billion, high-performing, privately held trust company located in Illinois that was sold to private equity.

Prior to forming Artisan Advisors, Jeff spent 25 years as a C-suite level officer and director in various community banks ranging in size from a denovo to $1 billion in asset size, both publicly traded and privately held.  In these positions, Jeff had overall management responsibility for all bank financial operations, loan and deposit operations, retail banking, and administrative activities. 

Jeff’s contributed to the success of these banks through effective capital raising activities, implementing strong financial controls and risk management practices, implementing creative deposit funding strategies, performing M&A analysis and integration, proper tax planning and implementing vendor efficiencies.  Additionally, Jeff chaired each institutions ALM committee, and was an active part of the bank strategic planning and credit committees.

Jeff is a registered CPA in Illinois.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and accounting from Augustana College and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago.