Doug Hartsema, founder of the Hartsema Group, began his experience in customer engagement in 1983 with Wachovia Bank, a perennial leader in treasury services innovation. Drawing on a successful record of recruiting and managing high-performing managers for the Bank, Doug applied a similar strategy to finding the right customers to actively serve on an effective advisory board. The 1990s-era Wachovia customer advisory board became the inspiration and the model for the company Doug would create 25 years later.
Since then, Doug has been refining his methodologies for developing and managing advisory groups and has used them as a strategic advantage throughout his 30-year banking career. After leading the Treasury Services business at Wachovia Bank (now part of Wells Fargo), he had a brief role in the technology industry at Selkirk Financial Technologies before joining the leadership of J.P.Morgan Chase’s Receivables Operations business. In 2009, he joined Columbus-based Huntington Bank.
The Hartsema Group got its start in 2013 when Doug, encouraged by a very active Huntington Advisory Board that he created, transitioned from his role as leader of Huntington’s Treasury Management business to that of founder of The Hartsema Group. And Huntington Bank became the first customer.
Today the Hartsema Group uses Doug’s many years of experience connecting with customers as advisors, and the best practices of our current customers, to help fulfill the Company’s mission to connect organizations to their key customers and constituents.
In the early 1990’s, Wachovia’s advisory board made Wachovia better and the experience made the advisory companies and the advisors better. They became stronger together. Today, The Hartsema Group has the unique opportunity to see dozens of organizations and hundreds of their key customers become stronger by working together.
Doug holds a BA in Economics from Wake Forest University and is an enthusiastic and proud former member of the Wake Forest golf team. Doug and his wife Jennifer live in Mooresville, NC.