As Vice President, Community Development at Enterprise Bank & Trust, Monica M. Campbell is responsible for the bank’s efforts to be a valuable community member.
“I’m the liaison between the bank and the community, to foster and provide financial wellness for the community,” Campbell said. That can mean anything “on the mortgage side, or small business, or personal.”
She teaches and otherwise helps with financial literacy classes at various organizations, including one financial empowerment class with the City of St. Louis.
“A lot of organizations already have their own mission, and we just align with them,” she said. “So if they’ve got financial literacy classes, I may assist them with their classes or help promote them, or teach one of them.”
Another aspect of the social mission of Enterprise Bank and Trust is an emphasis on homeownership. Campbell partners with nonprofits in the St. Louis area to help people learn about homebuying and to get them the resources they need to buy their own homes.
Campbell believes homeownership can transform neighborhoods.
“I think it’s important because when the community owns the property in the neighborhood, they have a vested interest in that area, and it promotes growth,” she said. “‘It instills confidence. You know, like, ‘I’m not renting, I actually own something.’”
Though she’s been working in the banking industry for 21 years now, Campbell says this is the first time she’s received an award for the work she does. She began her work at Mercantile Bank, as a customer service representative. And she was good at her job – so good, in fact, that one customer asked to meet her in person after she helped them change the interest rate on their credit card over the phone, she said. After that, she realized that interacting with people was the most important part of her job.
“So I eventually transitioned to the retail side, because I was too closed in,” Campbell said.
“There was something missing. I was helping people, helping them save on their finances and things like that but, in my early 20s, I couldn’t see it,” Campbell said. “I knew there was something missing, and I actually needed to see the people. So they told me I needed to be a personal banker.”
From there, she moved up the ladder, and eventually switched jobs to Enterprise Bank because she saw that they were already invested in the educational aspect of banking, just like she was. Through their Enterprise University program, they had already been teaching free classes in finance, human resources, marketing and other topics for over 10 years.
“You don’t even have to be a customer of the bank” to attend the classes, said Campbell. “They get the whole education piece. So that was one of the things that drew me to Enterprise.”
Another thing that attracted her to working at Enterprise was, Campbell said, “When customers applied for loans and lines of credit, if it was something that we weren’t able to do at that time, we didn’t just decline them, we figured out a way. What did that customer need in order to get approved?”
That willingness to help people learn about finances, even if those people aren’t bank customers, made Enterprise a perfect fit for Campbell. She works to make a more interconnected, supportive, and financially healthy St. Louis. Ultimately, she said, “Anything that promotes financial wellness within the community, I’m cultivating those relationships.”
Aside from her work in financial education, Campbell said she’s especially proud of how she’s helped other people advance in their careers.
“I think I probably promoted at least eight to 10 people from their positions,” she recalled. “So I’m proud of being able to develop talent.”
In addition to her work as VP of Community Development, Campbell is a mother of five, and a part time fitness boot camp instructor at BKM Fitness in Ferguson.
