Press Kit

Corporate Overview

BAI is a nonprofit, independent organization that delivers the financial services industry’s most actionable insights, helping leaders make strategic business decisions with greater clarity and confidence.

BAI was founded in 1924 as the National Association of Bank Auditors and Controllers (NABAC) and quickly became both a voice and resource for the industry through annual conventions and a financial industry-focused magazine. By the 1940s, NABAC began to provide both educational and technical research for its members, services that are core to BAI’s offerings today. In 1969, NABAC rebranded to BAI and was serving nearly 8,000 member institutions in the U.S.

Today, BAI’s research offers unbiased perspectives and industry expertise through in-depth data analysis, providing leaders with business intelligence to make the best strategic decisions to guide the future direction of their organizations.

BAI’s learning and development resources offer comprehensive yet flexible regulatory compliance and professional development training solutions and tools to foster a culture of responsibility for the financial services industry. BAI serves approximately 1,700 organizations and 275,000 learners annually through the BAI Learning Manager and hundreds of role-based and topic specific courses.

BAI is dedicated to bringing industry thought-leaders together to create opportunities to discuss industry insights, whether in-person or virtually. BAI’s annual conference, BAI Beacon, is an immersive, fast-paced, open campus style financial services conference that heavily focuses on disruptive innovation. BAI also hosts semiannual roundtables, inviting select financial services leaders to discuss common challenges and share insights in a confidential setting. Additionally, BAI creates virtual collaborative opportunities, by organizing virtual discussions through its extensive webinar series.

BAI also operates BAI Banking Strategies, an online financial services publication. BAI Banking Strategies offers financial services leaders insights through its editorial content, newsletters, executive reports and a weekly podcast produced by editor-in-chief, Lou Carlozo.

Since its inception, BAI’s mission has been to empower financial services leaders to make smart business decisions that drive positive change and move the industry forward. Through research, training, thought leadership and industry events, BAI works to provide leaders with the trusted information they need to lead with clarity and confidence to power a strong financial services industry.

Fact Sheet

As a nonprofit, independent organization, BAI delivers the financial services industry’s most actionable insights, enabling leaders to make smart business decisions every day. BAI is passionate about delivering trusted information and powerful tools that provide leaders with the clarity and confidence needed to drive positive change and move the financial services industry forward.

Media Contact: Kendall Carwile, [email protected], 678-781-7224

Founded: 1924

Headquarters: Chicago, Ill.

Spokespeople:

  • Debbie Bianucci, President and CEO
  • Karl Dahlgren, Managing Director
  • Holly Hughes, Chief Marketing Officer

Website: www.bai.org

BAI:

  • Provides trusted, in-depth comparative analytics, including benchmarking research on consumer, commercial and small business deposit performance, talent management, marketing spend and other strategic areas for financial services organizations;
  • Has the largest and most comprehensive repository of account-level data in the financial services industry and synthesizes the data to provide an accurate view of business results and opportunity;
  • Enables financial services leaders to gauge how they perform in specific market segments against regional, national and asset size-based comparisons and determine growth opportunities within the market;
  • Offers comprehensive compliance and professional development training to more than 1,700 financial services organizations and more than 275,000 learners each year, including banks, credit unions, mortgage companies and nonbank financial services organizations;
  • Provides role-based compliance curriculums to streamline training for mortgage lenders, tellers, branch managers, board of directors, etc. often saving as much as 30% in training time;
  • Offers tools such as webinars, whitepapers, regulatory update summaries and professional development training, which help leaders stay current on the latest industry information and trends.;
  • Hosts industry-leading events from private executive roundtable meetings to large multi-day banking conferences like BAI Beacon to provide leaders with trusted information, actionable insights and powerful networking opportunities.

BAI Leadership

Debbie Bianucci

President and Chief Executive Officer

As president and CEO of BAI, Debbie Bianucci leads the BAI team in providing financial services leaders with the powerful tools, meaningful connections and relevant content that yield better business decisions.

Bianucci has worked in the financial services industry for more than 35 years and has held senior positions with several major services companies. Before joining BAI, Bianucci was vice president of marketing at Dean Witter Discover. Prior to that, she served as vice president of marketing at Wells Fargo.

With more than 25 years affiliated with BAI, Bianucci is a frequent speaker at industry events and has authored numerous books and articles on popular financial services topics.

For more information about Bianucci, visit her LinkedIn profile.

Karl Dahlgren

Managing Director

Karl Dahlgren is the managing director at BAI, leading the Research and Learning & Development lines of business. These lines of business offer financial services leaders the actionable insights and powerful tools they need to make smart business decisions and confidently manage their compliance training.

Dahlgren has worked in the financial services industry for more than 20 years, including roles in banking, payments and software industries. Prior to joining BAI in 2014, Dahlgren held leadership roles at ABN AMRO North America and 4Access Communications, a technology start-up serving the financial payments industry.

For more information about Dahlgren, visit his LinkedIn profile.

*Headshots available upon request.