Nationwide Bank's Incoming Chief Forming Strategy.(Anne L. Arvia, Nationwide Financial Services)(Interview)

As the president of Nationwide Financial Services Inc.'s new retail bank, Anne L. Arvia has no doubt what her biggest challenge will be: getting Nationwide's insurance customers to use its banking products and services.
"How do you take advantage of their strong brand and their national reach?" asked Ms. Arvia, who was named the president of Nationwide Bank this week.
Running the banking arm of a giant insurer is new territory for Ms. Arvia, currently the president and chief executive at the $1.5 billion-asset ShoreBank, a community development bank in Chicago. Her last day at ShoreBank will be Aug. 18, and she will take the helm of Nationwide Bank in September.
Ms. Arvia's hiring was announced three months after Nationwide got regulatory approval to launch a retail thrift and about a month after its $112 million-asset bank announced it had agreed to buy the $523 million-asset Nationwide Federal Credit Union for $79 million in cash. The holding company, its bank, and the credit union are based in Columbus, Ohio.
Mark. R. Thresher, the president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Financial, said that the bank is still essentially in "start-up mode" and needed a leader that could create a plan for it.
"The ability to set a vision and grow the bank is a key part of what I was looking for" in a new president, he said.
The credit union, created to serve Nationwide's employees, retirees, and their families, has 40,000 retail customers. Mr. Thresher said that merging the credit union with the bank is the best way to build a customer base quickly.
Mr. Thresher said the bank will focus first on attracting Nationwide Financial's customers and probably will serve customers primarily through call centers and the Internet, rather than a branch network. He quickly added, though, that nothing has been set in stone.
"A lot of that is for Anne to come on board and help us decide all of that," he said.
Ms. Arvia, 43, said that she has not had the chance to formulate a strategy, but she has begun researching the best ways to make the bank a national competitor.
"My preference is probably more of an Internet play," though it is too soon to tell what direction the bank will take, she said.
She will succeed John Skubik, the bank's current president and CEO, who will stay on as chief operating officer until he retires early next year.
Ms. Arvia has worked at ShoreBank, a unit of the $1.9 billion-asset ShoreBank Corp., since 1991 and was named its president in 2002, after serving as the acting president since 2000. The company's assets have grown by about 74% since the end of 2000.
ShoreBank Corp. president Mary Houghton will be the interim president and CEO of the bank until a successor is found. She said that ShoreBank was unhappy about losing Ms. Arvia, but that the hiring spoke well of her tenure at ShoreBank.
"We're very sad to lose Anne, and we're very proud that her record here led to her being recruited," Ms. Houghton said.
Ms. Arvia said that she had been considering changing jobs since last year, because she wanted to try new challenges. She had a chance meeting with the search firm that Nationwide had hired to find a successor for Mr. Skubik, and that meeting led to her being considered for the job.
Ms. Houghton said ShoreBank will be looking for a president who is committed to its mission.
"The challenge will be finding someone who has an interest in building a profitable bank in what we refer to as emerging markets," she said.
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