Going local
For Tiffany O”™Toole, one day it”™s cyber-fraud and the next it”™s funerals.
The newly appointed managing director and senior vice president of Tompkins Financial Advisors in White Plains, a subsidiary of parent company Tompkins Financial Corp. in Ithaca, knows her strength as a financial adviser is only as strong as her knowledge of her clients”™ interests ”“ and their whereabouts.
That”™s how the Rye resident found herself at a meeting of the New York State Association of Cemeteries.
“Most of the cemeteries are downstate and I thought, ”˜It”™s so important for me to just be there and to understand what they face and what their issues are and what the attorneys who service them face,”™” O”™Toole said.
Call it a strategic approach, but O”™Toole, marked by bright smile and blond locks, appears genuinely happy to have moved from the senior-level offices of Credit Suisse Private Bank Americas to her native White Plains.
“Prior to going to Credit Suisse, I worked for the Bank of New York here in White Plains and since then, a lot of the larger banks have vacated Westchester or they”™ve reduced their staffs,” O”™Toole said. “Tompkins saw this as an opportunity to say, ”˜Hey, we love being local in the community and we see the Westchester and Hudson Valley region as an opportunity, so while these other guys are vacating, we want to move in and establish a presence.”
The American Bankers Association recently ranked Tompkins Financial No. 9 on its list of top-performing banks, thrifts and holding companies with assets of more than $3 billion. The financial services holding company operates Tompkins Trust Co., The Bank of Castile, Mahopac National Bank, Tompkins Financial Advisors and Tompkins Insurance Agencies.
First quarter earnings were strong with a reported net income of $8.8 million, up 4.2 percent from the $8.4 million earned in the first quarter of 2010.
Though numbers are up and expansion is continual, O”™Toole noted that the entire industry has shifted from her days in high school when she assisted her financial adviser father and his colleagues at Merrill Lynch in White Plains.
“I think the hardest thing about this time is that history isn”™t helping us,” O”™Toole said. “In other recessions, I think you”™ve been able to go back and look at the history books and say, ”˜OK, this is what”™s going to happen”™ or bonds are going to act adversely to stocks, gold is going to do this ”¦ and we”™re just not seeing that this time around.”
The next 10 to 12 years will be unchartered waters for those providing portfolio counsel.
“In the past, they didn”™t have the world of communication that we do now,” O”™Toole said. “There weren”™t emails, there weren”™t cell phones, yet it was a lot more of this in-person contact. We got away from that for awhile.”
O”™Toole recalled her earlier years in private banking, when a client asked her to walk his dog on the weekends that he was away.
“It was just a part of what we did and it was a part of our service and then the world got away from service,” she said. “But we”™re getting back to that.”
A question of the impact of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on her industry is met with acknowledgment that her business is one with high regulation, but not without just cause.
“Finance shouldn”™t be a mystery,” she said. “The last thing you want is clients saying, ”˜I don”™t even know what I own or what I have.”™ So it”™s educating from a product standpoint, but also the documents: ”˜What am I signing?”™ ”˜What is this piece of paper?”™”