Bank Transfer Day may have come and gone, but for Kristen Christian, the L.A. business owner who started the nationwide campaign, the movement hasn’t stopped.
The 27-year-old owner of Le Spec art gallery in Silver Lake has become a national figure, is in demand on the speaking circuit and is even parlaying her newfound fame into a second career.
After using Facebook to encourage big-bank customers to switch to credit unions, Christian has become a “social media strategist” and told the Business Journal she has been working with a number of organizations in her new role.
“I’m still weighing options on how I can use my skill set and the momentum of Bank Transfer Day to continue to promote conscious consumerism and community growth,” she said in an e-mail.
Christian conceived of Bank Transfer Day in October after she became fed up with what she saw as excessive fees charged by big financial institutions. She reached out to a few friends online and the idea quickly took hold, supported by many members of the nationwide Occupy Wall Street protests.
A recent survey found that during a 90-day period before and after Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5, about 5.6 million people switched their banking relationships, which was three times more than the previous 90 days. Of those people, about 11 percent, or 610,000, cited the Bank Transfer Day movement as their reason for switching, according to Javelin Strategy & Research Inc.
Christian said she is “deeply humbled by the response.”
As a result of all the attention, she was featured on NBC’s “Today” show as one of website iVillage.com’s top five women of the year. She is scheduled to speak at credit union conferences in Washington, D.C., and St. Petersburg, Fla., in the coming months, and she has been in contact with groups about speaking in Europe.
“My life has been turned completely upside down,” she said.
The notion is living on as a marketing tool, as well. A group of South Carolina credit unions recently applied for a trademark on the slogan “Every Day is Bank Transfer Day.”
Christian said the application was done without her knowledge or permission, and that she did not receive compensation. However, she supports the recent move by the Credit Union National Association, an industry trade group, to take over the trademark application process.
Local Expansion
D.A. Davidson & Co., an investment banking firm headquartered in Great Falls, Mont., is making a push to gain market share in Los Angeles.
The firm announced last week the acquisition of Costa Mesa’s McGladrey Capital Markets LLC, a move that roughly quadruples its number of investment bankers in the area to 35. D.A. Davidson, which already has an L.A. office, plans to consolidate its Southern California operations into a single location.
The firm said it targeted the greater L.A. area because of the abundance of middle-market mergers and acquisitions, its area of specialization.
“This market is important to us,” said Brad Gevurtz, the firm’s head of investment banking. “This is a very dynamic middle-market M&A area.”
Rory McKinney, the managing director of D.A. Davidson’s L.A. office, said the firm will continue to expand in the area through new hires.
The acquisition comes several weeks after D.A. Davidson signed a strategic operating agreement with Greencoast Capital Partners LLC, a broker-dealer headquartered in Los Angeles that specializes in municipal finance. Under the terms of that deal, D.A. Davidson can offer Greencoast’s services to its clients.
C-Suite News
After 20 years at the helm of Broadway Financial Corp. and its subsidiary, Broadway Federal Bank, Chief Executive Paul Hudson announced last week that he will step down from that position, but will continue to serve as chairman of the company and the bank. Wayne-Kent A. Bradshaw, the president and chief operating officer, will assume the chief executive post after regulatory approval, which is expected next month. … Cathay General Bancorp, the holding company for L.A.’s Cathay Bank, has announced that director Thomas Tartaglia has died. … The L.A. chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, a professional association for middle-market dealmakers, has elected Andrew Apfelberg president and chairman.
Staff reporter Richard Clough can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 251.
