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The Voice of Business,
Industry & the Professions Since 1942
North Carolina's largest
business group proudly serves as the state chamber of commerce
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| Executive Profile
He's
Got Game
In 33 years in banking, Graham Denton
Made millions in profits and raised
millions for worthy causes
By Laura Williams-Tracy
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When
he was a
schoolboy and almost a graduate of the first class at Charlotte’s Alexander
Graham Middle School, Graham Denton received business training even a
grownup might envy.
His father, a schoolteacher who traveled extensively as a financier with a
company that eventually became Barclays American, took his only son on a
weeklong business trip each summer.
Denton, now 59, recalls that his father told people during business
meetings, “This is my son and he’s going to sit there in the corner and
listen and not be disruptive.” The younger Denton watched his father borrow
money for his firm on Wall Street or strike deals in other towns in America
in the late 1950s.
“Those meetings to me were one of the most fascinating things,” says Denton
as he remembers his dynamic late father and the lessons the elder Denton
tried to teach.
A few years later his father insisted that his son take a summer job in the
blue-collar sector, maybe working in construction, but for sure something
that required hoisting a heavy load.
“He told me then he wanted me to see what that world is like, and ‘you
probably won’t choose that.’ He wanted me to have the best exposure to the
world I could get.”
With a child’s view on the inner workings of business, it seems Denton has
always been preparing for the banker’s career he’s pursued over the past 33
years. From a fresh face recruit who joined what was then NCNB in 1971 with
a master’s degree in finance and two years as a supply officer in the Army
to today, Denton achieved a far deeper understanding of the banking world,
serving in and leading most of the bank’s operating areas.
Today he is the point person for the nation’s largest retail bank in its
headquarters city as president of both Bank of America in North Carolina and
Charlotte. It’s a large role considering that most North Carolinians can
readily name Hugh McColl Jr., the former chairman of Bank of America who
grew it to a national powerhouse. In Charlotte McColl’s name is synonymous
with the $1 billion in investments the bank made in the city’s uptown over
the past decade, building office, retail and residential complexes as well
as contributing to multiple cultural institutions. Denton himself, while not
as well known as McColl, has overseen sports marketing for the bank, which
recently spent $140 million for the naming rights to the uptown Charlotte
stadium where the NFL Carolina Panthers play.
There are large expectations
for the community role the bank serves, and Denton understands that public
role well and the expectations that come with it. So clear, in fact is his
understanding that in the summer he took on a new role as the bank’s market
president executive, which means he oversees everyone else who serves as a
market president for the bank, some 145 individuals throughout the 29 states
where Bank of America now operates.
Those executives are the public face of the bank and are responsible not
only for growing business in their areas but also for leveraging its
reputation and resources to improve the community.
“It takes a special person who wants to spend extra time outside of the
office,” says Denton. “They are the ones who make sure the bank’s footprint
in that market is as it should be.”
Denton reports to Gene Taylor in his new role. Taylor oversees all
commercial banking for the company, and is just two steps from Chairman and
CEO Ken Lewis. Denton has known Lewis since they were new recruits to the
bank in the early 1970s.
At his father’s encouragement, Denton followed a relatively direct path to a
career in banking, a profession the elder Denton supported because of its
high standards.
Born in Charlotte in 1945, Denton lived in a variety of the city’s close-in
historic neighborhoods, including Plaza Midwood, Dilworth, Myers Park and
Eastover as his parents indulged their hobby of fixing up homes and selling
them. He moved five times before he graduated from Myers Park High School.
His parents, Graham and Castelloe Denton, met in neighboring Stanly County
when both were schoolteachers, but his father went to work in automobile
consumer finance. Denton followed in his father’s footsteps to Wake Forest,
majoring in history, but all the while considering a career in business. He
joined ROTC, which meant that he’d have a two-year commitment to the Army at
some point after graduation.
Fearing that he might never return to school after being out of the groove,
Denton attended graduate school in Atlanta immediately after Wake Forest and
earned a master’s degree in finance.
While at Georgia State, a
friend of Denton’s who was soon to graduate, had held an internship with
First National Bank of Atlanta, which was eventually acquired by Wachovia,
and at the friend’s encouragement Denton applied for and got the internship
next. The experience opened Denton’s eyes to the opportunities in banking as
he spent his time developing training programs for the bank’s employees.
He then entered the army as a first lieutenant, and during the era of the
Vietnam War he spent 13 months in Korea as a supply officer in the
Quartermaster Corps. Upon returning from his two-year stint in the military
in 1971, Denton interviewed with several banks but was attracted to then-NCNB.
Banks in those days were not allowed to cross state lines, but Denton liked
NCNB because it was a fast-growing statewide bank with multiple branches.
“I sensed there was upward mobility and that turned out to be the case,”
says Denton. “NCNB, NationsBank and then Bank of America turned out to be a
great place to have a career and it still is.”
While most professionals change jobs and even careers over the course of
their working life, Denton has never left the bank, though it has changed
and transformed several times. He’s a one-company man, Denton says, “and you
don’t find those people any more.”
Back then NCNB had fewer than 2,000 employees and Denton knew most all of
them by name. Today the bank counts 170,000 associates, with 14,000 of them
under Denton’s watch in the Charlotte region.
Over his 33-year career, Denton has worked and managed multiple operations
areas of the bank, first selling cash management and collections services to
local companies and then on a national scale to Fortune 500 companies. He
moved through risk management and into commercial business in the late
1970s. In 1984, just two years after banking rules allowed expansion into
other states, Denton went to Tampa, Fla., to run the bank’s risk policy
there. He became a regional manager in Miami in 1987.
Late in the summer of 1992, just as Hurricane Andrew blew through Florida,
Denton and his family moved back to Charlotte where he took on the role of
managing the global corporate and investment bank. In 2000 he returned to
risk management and oversaw middle market banking for the Atlantic region,
which encompassed serving companies of $10 million to $2 billion in size.
For the past three years Denton has been president of the Charlotte market
and in 2002 was named market president for North Carolina. Last summer,
Denton was named market president executive, a new role in which he oversees
the market presidents in the 29 states and District of Columbia, and the
presidents of local markets where Bank of America operates. In total he
coordinates 145 individuals in their leadership roles.
Leading others who are the
public face of Bank of America creates a high expectation for Denton to work
hard as a volunteer outside of his banking duties. With his banking
relationships and financing savvy, he’s often called upon to handle the
primary task of raising money.
This fall he served as statewide finance chair for the NCCBI-led North
Carolinians for Jobs and Progress, which won passage of the Amendment One
referendum. Though most states already had self-financing bonds as a tool
for economic development, North Carolina had tried twice before in the early
1980s and early 1990s and failed to win passage for the right of municipal
and county governments to use such bonds. Governments can use the
self-financing bonds to pay for public improvements, such as streets, water,
sewer and sidewalks to help encourage economic development. The bonds are
then paid off from additional tax revenues generated by increased property
tax values.
The measure passed in November by a slim margin, but Denton predicts it will
be a valuable economic development tool.
“The bonds are specifically tied to revenue so they are not a general
obligation of the community,” says Denton. “It has great benefit to the
community and will create additional revenue down the road.”
Leslie Bevacqua Coman, vice president of governmental affairs for NCCBI at
the time, and chair of the Amendment One steering committee, says Denton’s
standing among the state’s business community brought integrity to the job
of raising $1.75 million to spend on advertising to promote the benefits of
Amendment One.
“We needed someone with credibility who knew who to go to and who could make
the ask,” says Bevacqua Coman. Denton called on others with a strong belief
in improving the state’s economic development initiatives, including other
bankers, law firms, building contractors and business owners.
“We wanted to find someone who had responsibility in the business community
and who was a strong supporter of the issue, and Graham Denton fit the
bill,” says Bevacqua Coman. “People gave to the campaign because Graham
Denton asked them to.”
“It's been a busy year for Graham, both in his leadership role at Bank of
America and with NCCBI,” says NCCBI President Phil Kirk. “He raised $1.7
million for the successful Amendment One campaign while leading the NCCBI
new membership campaign at the same time. Graham will be the first to say
that he did neither by himself and that is true. His organizational and
motivational skills have served both efforts well. NCCBI is fortunate that
leaders such as Graham put a priority on doing everything possible to make
our state and organization successful in many areas,” Kirk continues.”
Denton will continue his statewide leadership role into 2006 when he is
scheduled to become chair of NCCBI. During this year, he has spearheaded
NCCBI’s membership campaign, which is scheduled to raise $100,000.
ON a local level in a city full of bankers, Denton faces no less pressure to
be the money man. For the past two years he has chaired the prestigious
Alexis de Tocqueville Society for the United Way of Central Carolinas. The
society is an exclusive club of contributors to the umbrella agency who give
at least $10,000 a year to fund United Way health and human services
agencies.
Denton already serves as chairman of the board of United Family Services,
one of United Way’s largest agencies, and there he sees first hand the needs
of the community, says Gloria Pace King, executive director of United Way of
Central Carolinas.
“When you are asking people for a big commitment, you’ve got to have a story
to tell,” says King. “Graham didn’t have to study. He didn’t need a script.”
Instead, she says, Denton has tons of business relationships to call upon
and a wealth of respect people have for his low-key but powerful presence.
“He makes things happen,” she says. “He has a way about him that is very
calming.”
And in 2005 Denton will make even more happen when he takes over as chairman
for the entire United Way of Central Carolinas campaign, which raised $39.1
million this year. “We are sure he will exceed that,” King says.
Denton gets involved with community work in a way showing it’s more than
just part of his job, King points out. When Bank of America recently
announced a two-year, $15 million program called the Neighborhood Excellence
Initiative to recognize, nurture and reward organizations, local heroes and
student leaders who are rebuilding their communities, Denton jumped in feet
first, says King.
Denton spoke passionately about the program as keynote speaker for the
recent Excellente Awards given by La Noticia, Charlotte’s Hispanic
newspaper. Part of the program provides $200,000 in grant funding to
neighborhood nonprofit organizations working to promote vibrant
neighborhoods.
“He didn’t delegate. He sat in the room and helped us figure out who should
receive the awards,” says King. “Yes, he has banking relationships but no
matter who you are, when you see you’ve helped someone get from Point A to
Point B and changed their life, it’s fabulous,” says King. “It’s obvious he
enjoys that part of his job.”
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