Senn Delaney “a Heidrick & Struggles Company” Interviews First Horizon’s CEO

Senn Delaney sat down with Bryan Jordan, CEO of First Horizon National Corporation to discuss how revitalizing the culture helped turn around the financial service company.

You were the CFO before becoming CEO. What made you want to lead the strategic and operations side of a company?

Jordan: I came into this organization in May of 2007 and became CEO on September 1, 2008. I did come up through the finance side of business. I was in public accounting for about eight years; I joined the old First Union, the new Wachovia, and was there most of the 1990s.

Because that was an organization that was growing rapidly during that period, I became quite interested in how you change organizations, how you ensure accountability in an organization and how you build a sustainable organization for the long term.

During that period, I became keenly inter­ested in what doesn’t work, what works and why it does work. I concluded that the culture of the organization and the environment that comes from the CEO and leadership in totality are critical to making an organization successful.

The culture is not going to make good decisions for you, but it’s going to give you an environment where your people can be fast, flexible and nimble and posi­tion your company for success.

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