Speaker: Dev Strischek

Date:  April 30, 2025

Time: 11:30-1pm

Registration closes at 11:59PM on April 28, 2025. This event qualifies for 1.8 CRC continuing education credits.

Description:

Good leaders walk the talk, but they also “write right”. They know how to say in a few words what needs to be said in crisp, clear language. The road to bad communication is paved with good intentions but poor construction. Readers know when subjects and verbs don’t agree, when punctuation misses the point, when words don’t fit, and content is confusing. In this session, learn how a few basic rules on grammar, punctuation, and usage can improve business written communications with clearer, more succinct content.

Business writing is best when it is spare and clear, precise and concise.  This session is designed to give practical and useful advice and tips on how to tighten up language and organize the content into a logical, convincing read.  Attendees don’t have to be English majors or literature students.  The aim is to improve the readability of your written words.

Why You Should Attend:

Good writing takes practice, and many schools have reduced the time spent on formal writing, especially practical grammar, proficient spelling, appropriate punctuation, logical development, etc.  This course can’t fill that kind of educational vacuum, but it can help participants improve on the skills they do have.

So this is a webinar useful to many areas of your organization—not just lenders and credit approvers, not just credit analysts and loan reviewers, but also auditors, loan administrators, marketing, retail, operations—anyone who has to explain or convince others that what they are saying makes sense.

Course Objectives:

Participants will learn how to:

• Eliminate puffy and ambiguous words and phrases and replace them with sharper, clearer alternatives
• Understand how to use punctuation to tighten writing into a more readable and understandable documentation
• Build stronger, easy-to-understand explanations and recommendations with more focus on sequential, logical constructions—less is usually more

·        Support these objectives with appropriate before-and-after examples

Course Outline:

• Techniques for writing clearly and concisely
• Clear writing
• Specific words vs. generalities
• Active vs. passive voice
• Unnecessary words & phrases
• Doublets & redundancies
• Wordy habit phrases
• Wordy dependent clauses
• Unneeded connecting words
• Wordy “due ti” explanations
• Techniques for writing well-organized, logical arguments
• Introductions & summaries to integrated argument
• Avoiding elevator analysis
• Bringing order to facts, interpretations & evaluations
• Making words count right
• Some extra readability writing tips—rounding numbers, acronyms, “of” and parenthesis eradication

Who Will Benefit-- Anyone who writes memos, reports, analyses, etc. :

• Credit Analysts
• Credit Managers
• Loan review officers
• Work-out officers
• Commercial lenders
• Credit Risk Managers
• Chief Credit Officers
• Senior Lenders
• Senior Lending Officer
• Bank Director
• Chief Executive Officer
• President
• Board Chairman

Dev Strischek, Principal, Devon Risk Advisory Group LLC

A frequent speaker, instructor, advisor and writer on credit risk and commercial banking topics and issues, Dev is principal of Devon Risk Advisory Group and engages in consulting, speaking and training on a wide range of risk, credit, and lending topics. As former SVP and senior credit policy officer at SunTrust Bank, Atlanta, he was responsible for developing, implementing, and administering credit policies for SunTrust's wholesale lines of business--commercial, commercial real estate, corporate investment banking, capital markets, business banking and private wealth management. He also spent three years as managing director and credit approver in SunTrust's Florida commercial lending and corporate investment banking areas, respectively. Prior to SunTrust, Dev was chief credit officer for Barnett Bank's Palm Beach market. Besides stints at other banks in Florida, Kansas City, and Ohio, Dev's experiences outside of banking include CFO of a Honolulu construction company, combat engineer officer in the U.S. Army, and college economics instructor in Hawaii, Missouri, and Florida. A graduate of Ohio State University and the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking, he earned his M.B.A. from the University of Hawaii.

Dev serves as an instructor in the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and the American Bankers Association's (ABA) Commercial Lending. He has also taught at the Southwest Graduate School of Banking and the Wisconsin School of Banking.  His school, conference, and workshop audiences have included participants drawn from the ABA, RMA, OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, FFIEC, SBA, the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and the AICPA.

Dev has written about credit risk management, financial analysis and related subjects for the Risk Management Association's RMA Journal, and other business professional journals. He is the author of Analyzing Construction Contractors and conducts its related RMA workshop. A past national chair of RMA and former Florida Chapter president, Dev served as a member of the RMA Journal's advisory board and the advisory board of the Atlanta Chapter of the Professional Risk Managers' International Association (PRMIA). He has consulted on credit risk issues with banks in Morocco, Egypt, and Angola through the US State Department's Financial Service Volunteer Corps (FSVC).  He also served on the Private Company Council (PCC) of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB);  the PCC reviews current and proposed generally accepted principles (GAAP) and recommends revisions that simplify their use for privately held organizations.

Cancellation and Refund Policy:

You may request to cancel your ticket for a full refund, up to 72 hours before the date and time of the event. Cancellation requests made within 72 hours of the event date/time will not be refunded. When you register for this program, you agree to these terms.

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