Has anyone ever inspired you to create a more fulfilling and successful life for yourself? As a leader in your business and in your community, what are the questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis? Basis? What are the questions that keep you up at night? I am your host, Betty Collins. I'm a CPA. I'm a business owner, and I partner with other women, other business owners who want to have remarkable results for themselves and for their business and their community. And I am here to help inspire you to take positive steps forward for a better life. So over the next 12 episodes and kind of this season, we're going to focus on lessons learned. We're gonna hear from other women who have learned lessons and they're gonna share with you. You know why? Because it's the right thing to do to help you navigate maybe similar situations that you're in and you don't have to go through what they've gone through. And I hope to challenge you that you have lessons learned in your journey that other women need to hear.

Never underestimate that part of your life and that story because it will have impact. In my opinion, we're obligated to share those life lessons. In my opinion, we have a responsibility to each other woman to woman or women to men, but I really believe what we've learned in our lessons over our journey are impactful and they need to be part of how you give back and how you help others. So welcome to inspiring women today. This is gonna be just a great interview. I think you're gonna really love, the guest and the, conversation that we're gonna have. I'm always a huge, huge, advocate for women who put it out there. You know? It's kinda like they're the turtle with their neck sticking out, and they don't get scared and and their neck comes back in the minute something gets hard.

And today, we have a lore a Lyra Rollins, and we are excited to have her. She is the CEO of Fortuna Bank. And, this is a an exciting story I want her to tell, and I'm I'm not gonna do too much with it. But it is a woman owned bank, and it is in central, Ohio. And, it's so impactful because this is banking and being lendable and capital are such big issues if you're in business, even bigger if you're a woman in business. So we're gonna talk about this today and hopefully, you can get some insight on it. Because it's one thing to say, who's your bank, but it's another thing to say, my banker is. And so, hopefully, today, you'll be able to really get through this with us, and this can be just such a great thing for you, to to listen to.

So I would love to start with you just telling your kind of your background a little bit about you for a couple of minutes and just, you know, kinda you've had a great history in banking, and and now you've kinda jumped into this venture. And today, we're starting a little bit late because I know you have kids, and we have, you know, obligations as moms. So just tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll go into the story of the bank. So

Fantastic. Thanks, Betty. I'm thrilled to be here. Just to share a little bit of my background, and, yes, we're all trying to juggle just life in general, along with leading. But I'm a career banker. I came to Ohio by way of Syracuse, New York and landed at Denison University. Immediately upon graduation, I really wanted to be a news broadcaster and landed in banking. And, never thought it would be a career for me.

I had, late in my college, really focused on some economics classes and loved them, and that's how I landed in banking. But, again, never thought it would be a career. 30 plus years later, here I am. I've had some unique opportunities. I've spent the majority of my time in retail banking. So when you think about the branch network for a bank, that's the space that I spent really the majority of my time, and I'd like to say I grew up in. But

Yeah.

My unique experiences is, one, I was part of a de novo group. And by de novo, I mean, a start up organization in banking. Here in Columbus, it was First Bexley Bank. It started in 2006. It ran until about 2014, and there, I was second to our CEO. So I ran kind of really the deposit side of the balance sheet, but also with any small industry and any small business. I also was marketing. I was our HR.