By Roberto Hugo Gonzalez
As originally published by Texas Border Business newsprint edition May 2018
IBC Bank of McAllen celebrated the first Annual Women of Purpose 2018. It brought together the most exciting and distinguished women of the region.
Dora Brown, IBC Vice President of Marketing, thanked everyone for attending, “Special thanks to all nonprofit organizations for everything that you do because your hard work is what keeps our community moving forward.”
Dora mentioned that the committee in charge of organizing the event is a beautiful committee comprised of community leaders.
“My very good friend Sister Norma Pimentel,” Dora said, “I love to be able to say she’s my very good friend now and that she and I were in Rome and we got to touch and talk to the pope.” She continued, “She’s already been with the pope more times. So, thank you.”
Sister Pimentel came to the podium and said, “Thank you, ladies. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to be in Rome and to see the Holy Father and to take Dora with me; we’re blessed. We are most certainly blessed.” Sister Pimentel proceeded to pray and said, “Loving God, we are women of purpose, we wake in the morning determined to know which direction you need us to walk.”
Adrian Villarreal, who was named President and CEO of IBC since December 2017 has been with the bank for 29 years. He addressed the attendees and said, “I think this is our first annual Women of Purpose, this is our kick-off event this year.” “How can we not do this every year.” He said, “I want to thank the committee members, they’re the ones who put this together.”
Also, he said, “If you want to talk about being blessed, work with these ladies every day.” He continued, “I don’t say this lightly at all, our success is due to their dedication and efforts.”
Villarreal also pointed out that what he is most proud of is that when they hire somebody at entry level and maybe they start off as a teller developing them over the years. “We invest in them and foster their growth with the bank and become managers and officers.”
Also, he said that he had seen the impact that they have. “To see their success that grows, really to me, that’s what I love doing,” Villarreal stated.
He pointed out that is not about numbers and profits all the time, but it is about seeing the growth of people. “I’ve been impacted in my career specifically by two people, one of them is Imelda Navarro, she is the president of IBC bank in Laredo which oversees all banks from Laredo to Oklahoma, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley.” He continued to say that he learned from her how to get the best in people.
The second lady that had a significant impact on him was his mother. “When I got the opportunity to take the CEO responsibility, I couldn’t tell anybody besides my wife until it was publicly released.”
What bothered him was that he couldn’t tell his mother.When he was able to let her know about his new position with the bank, she said, “I never imagined growing up poor and living on a dirt floor that my two boys would be president of the largest bank in the Rio GrandeValley.” Villarreal has a twin brother, and he is the president and CEO of IBC Brownsville.
As the First Annual Women of Purpose celebration continued, Dora proceeded to introduce the keynote speaker of the event. “There’s something extraordinary this evening, we have Catia Hernandez Holm; she is an author, a motivational speaker, you will be inspired and moved.”
Catia said that her favorite part of this event is exploring a sea of hearts, speaking love, bringing hope, and a possibility of finding space in your brain or in your heart rhythms to bring new thoughts and change.
The event took place at the IBC building at One S.Broadway in McAllen. It was packed with beautiful women from the region and was quite a success.
