If there’s one word that BYU Marriott School of Business alum Tyler Banks uses every day, it’s team. Whether he is with his coworkers at Alliant Private Client or with his family at home, Banks believes that teamwork is essential to make meaningful progress in life.
Banks began his career in commercial real estate. But when his company was sold and the economy crashed, he knew he needed to find another career path.
“The financial crisis [in 2008] was a huge hit on a lot of people, including my family,” Banks recalls. “I remember thinking: ‘I need to pay my tithing. I’m going to pay my tithing now and have faith that I will be able to find my next step.’”
So, Banks paid his tithing one Sunday, and on the following Monday morning, he received an offer to work for Marsh, an insurance brokerage. He learned the ropes of the industry and eventually landed a position at Willis Towers Watson (WTW) insurance, where he led a large division of the company as CEO and North American practice leader.
WTW originally wanted Banks to move from California to New York, but he and his wife, Jerriann, were unsure if that would be best for their growing family. “We carefully thought about the move out to New York because my responsibilities required me to travel to the East Coast quite regularly,” Banks explains. Together they decided to stay in Southern California and work as a team to raise and provide for their family.
“We are Team Banks, and with Jerriann, I’ve had a lot of success in my career,” Banks says. “She is an incredible mother and wife and has made sacrifices as part of my career path.” After a decade at WTW, Banks accepted a job as executive vice president at Alliant Insurance Services based in Southern California—much closer to home.
Banks and Jerriann work together to help their children find success and prepare for higher education. As Banks’s children reach high school, he enrolls them in SOAR—a BYU college preparation and scholarship program for multicultural students.
“My dad is Hawaiian—our Hawaiian heritage is really important to us as a family, and to carry that legacy forward with my children is extremely exciting,” Banks says. “My father was in finance, and I always knew that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and go into business.” Banks himself graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing. The family’s business legacy continues with Banks’s oldest daughter, who is currently a pre-business student at BYU.
Banks passes on advice to his daughter from his own experience in the business world—including the value of being genuine. “In the business world, it’s important to find your own voice and be your own authentic self. The more authentic you are, the more people will appreciate you and embrace you,” Banks says. “There’s no one-size-fits-all in the business world: You have to strive for something that caters to you and your strengths.”
Banks has seen the benefits of genuine vulnerability in his life as he navigates team settings. He says, “I’ve found success through accepting other people and being my own self—recognizing where I’m deficient and surrounding myself with good people who can complement my abilities.”
Through his understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses, Banks hopes to help his teams succeed. “My career goal,” he says, “is to give as many people as possible the tools to be successful while also holding them accountable and showing a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for them as an individual.”
Banks’s hard-earned business knowledge can be summed up in an acronym he often uses at work: TEAM—together, everyone achieves more. Whether Banks is leading a division in a global company or raising a family, his philosophy has held him true. He says, “If I work with a team, I can accomplish a lot more than I could on my own.”
