Flatirons Bank completes leadership transition

BOULDER — With the promotion of Kent Jones to CEO, Flatirons Bank has completed a smooth executive transition that the Boulder-based institution began easing into several years back.

Jones, who has served a number of roles at the bank over the last two decades and was its previous president and chief operating officer, took over leadership of Flatirons from Kyle Heckman in late November. 

“We’ve got a great working relationship,” Jones said of his predecessor. “I’ve learned a lot from him — everything from management style to how he’s approached growing the bank and risk management.”

Heckman “wanted to take kind of a step back from his operational role, and that’s something that we started on, as far as this executive transition, a couple of years ago,” Jones said. 

About a year ago, Jones added the president title to his COO duties before ultimately taking over day-to-day leadership from Heckman, who remains chairman of the bank’s board of directors.

The transition period “did really allow us to just take that one step at a time, which I think has been very, very important,” Jones said. “It’s nice to be able to really have Kyle as a resource. … As we look at our strategic initiatives, it’s been great to be able to collaborate with him.”

Jones has “played a vital role in the bank’s success over the past 20 years,” Heckman said in a statement. “I am confident that under his leadership, we will continue to deliver exceptional personalized service and innovative solutions that make a difference for our clients and community.”

Under Jones’ leadership, Flatirons, which has locations in Boulder and Longmont, intends “to further grow and expand within our markets,” Jones said.

In the near term, Longmont will be the focus of growth efforts. 

“We see a lot of opportunity in Longmont,” Jones said. “We’ve had a branch there since 2010, but it’s a fairly small facility” occupying about 1,000 square feet on Fourth Avenue. “So we identified a location that would allow us to expand into a larger facility, a bigger presence in Longmont.”

The Fourth Avenue branch has capacity for about six bank employees, so “it doesn’t really support much growth,” Jones said. The 3,000-square-foot space nearby on Kimbark Street has about triple the size, and Flatirons hopes to move in in February. 

“I think our model really resonates well in Longmont,” Jones said. “We have a number of staff members that are part of that community and live there … and the idea of being able to have more workstations, more offices, just works well from a staffing standpoint.”

When Jones, who grew up in rural Iowa and began working at a bank while a student at Iowa State University, started at Flatirons in 2004, the bank had about $40 million in assets and 10 employees. Today, it controls $330 million and employs 35 workers. Jones said he expects Flatirons to boost its headcount to about 40 in the next year and 50 within a few more.

Beyond growth, the bank plans to continue to evolve its digital offerings.

For example, Flatirons recently rolled out a platform that allows personal banking customers to open new accounts online, with a similar feature for business clients coming soon. 

Flatirons, Jones said, is “trying to make it easier for our clients to do business with us wherever they happen to be.”

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