Mr. Sanchez and Ms. Zuniga, are also directors of IBC, which represents over a majority of the Company’s banking assets. As such, the Board also receives regular reports on risk management matters of IBC.
The Board of Directors also established a Risk Committee and adopted a written Risk Committee Charter. The Risk Committee is appointed by the Board to assist the Board in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities with regard to the Company’s risk management. The Chair of the Risk Committee must be “independent,” as defined in the Nasdaq Marketplace Rules. Currently, all of the members of the Risk Committee are independent directors except Mr. Nixon. In addition, each other committee of the Board has been assigned oversight responsibility for specific areas of risk. For example, the Compensation Committee considers risks that may result from changes in the Company’s compensation programs, while the Asset/Liability, Investment, Balance Sheet-Management, Funds Management/Liquidity Interest Rate Risk Committee focuses on risk related to credit and interest rates, among others. The Audit Committee reviews risk related to our financial reporting.
Our senior risk officers report directly to the Board of Directors and to the CEO for administrative purposes. The Board believes that the combination of the joint CEO and Chairman positions and the roles of the Board and its committees provide the appropriate leadership to help ensure effective risk oversight.
In March 2020, the World Health Organization recognized the outbreak of COVID-19 as a pandemic. The spread of COVID-19 and resulting global health crisis has created extreme negative consequences and disruption in global financial markets and has curtailed activity in the governmental, commercial and consumer sectors.
The Board has continued to monitor the Company’s efforts to protect the health of its employees and customers, while still filling the needs in the communities its banks serve as an essential business, including steps to ensure proper safety protocols are in place such as enforcing local ordinances, discontinuing significant travel, ensuring social distancing, increasing disinfecting of facilities, establishing a human resources hotline to address employee concerns and establishing a task force to ensure the Company is making good decisions. The Board has also overseen the Company’s program of working with its customers on a case-by-case basis on temporary deferrals of interest and/or principal payments on loans and responding to other individual needs of those customers in distress, and assisting customers to obtain Paycheck Protection Program, (PPP) loans.
Although the Company maintains contingency and disaster recovery plans for pandemic outbreaks, the Board also oversaw the creation of a dedicated response team to closely monitor developments and provide guidance to management to make decisions.
The Board’s Role in Human Capital Oversight
As of December 31, 2021, we and our five subsidiary banks employed approximately 2,101 persons full time and 160 persons part time. As of December 31, 2021, more than half of our approximately 300-person officer management team have been with us for more than 15 years, and approximately two-thirds of those have been with us for more than 20 years.
The Board with management seeks to lead by example in developing a banking culture that builds genuine, personal relationships with our customers and the communities we serve. The most significant component of that mission is to attract, develop and maintain employees and officers of the highest quality that are representative of each community in which they serve, who are committed to their job, conduct themselves with the highest level of professionalism, devote themselves to their community, and relentlessly pursue perfection in their performance.
The Board’s and management’s objective is to instill our mission and cultural values throughout our entire organization. We are as dedicated to each other as “one team” moving in the same direction as we are to the communities we serve. The Board monitors the teaching and training of our employees to ensure that our customers receive superior customer service, and to develop superior skills at the transaction level, using a bottom-up approach to management.
The Board, with assistance from the Compensation Committee, oversees compensation plans coupled with a complete evaluation program to reward and direct the development of our employees. Our compensation systems are reflective of the need to retain and develop a superior workforce, recognizing that