Jessica Annas, the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Meridian Bank and a member of the 2021 Class of VISTA Millennial Superstars, delivered a powerful keynote speech at the 2024 VMS Awards Reception & Celebration last week at the Penn State Great Valley Conference Center.

Below is her speech in its entirety.

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You should all be very proud of the accomplishments and good decisions that led you into this room tonight. With over 100,000 people in this county eligible for this award, the fact is, the majority of your peers will never make it into this room. So, being here is a tremendous achievement, and you should celebrate it.

But, after this, there is no 50 Under 50! After this, we are just regular grown-ups — people who won’t just make the press for our potential but for our success.

Now, after reading all of your bios and nomination forms, I have no doubt that the people in this room, the VISTA Millennial Superstars Class of 2024, have great potential to leave a legacy, one that makes Chester County an even better place to live and work.

But I have a question for you.

How many of you have really thought about your LEGACY? It almost feels like too much to comprehend — the entirety of your life’s work summed up in the stories people will tell about you after you’re gone.

But whether or not you are thinking about your legacy is irrelevant, because you’re building it every day. So, as we enter middle age, and our careers, lives, and families take shape, it’s worth thinking about.

How are you building your legacy? Are you designing a legacy that makes your community better, one that reflects your highest intentions? Are you designing a legacy that would make your children proud to tell your story when you’re gone?

I have a story for you.

Back in 2005, Meridian Bank CEO Chris Annas and CLO Charlie Kochka were out looking for a branch location in the borough of West Chester. Now, if you know Charlie and Chris, you know that they probably started at Iron Hill for a few growlers. But, then, they visited some of the desirable retail storefronts to ask about their plans to stay in the space.

Until they got to 16 West Market Street.

At the time, this was an art gallery, but after speaking to the gallery attendant, they learned that the Art Trust would soon be vacating the space, as they could no longer afford the rent.

Charlie and Chris knew immediately that this was the location for Meridian’s West Chester branch. They began to discuss renovation plans and timing.

But they continued to think about that art gallery — not as business leaders in West Chester but patrons of the thriving West Chester social scene. They considered the impact it would have on West Chester to gain a bank branch at the expense of an art gallery.

Ultimately, Charlie and Chris did decide to take over the lease and move Meridian Bank into the space, but they did something else. They asked the Art Trust to stay. They proposed a partnership. The Art Trust would remain in the space, continue doing art gallery things, and Meridian would operate a bank branch inside of it.

This partnership was called the Art Trust at Meridian Bank and it’s now in its 18th year of existence. Today, the Art Trust gives away thousands of dollars each year in art scholarships to WCU students, while still featuring and giving a platform to only local artists. It is a thriving nonprofit that you can visit during bankers’ hours any day of the week.

Charlie and Chris’s decision that day created a ripple effect in the West Chester community that has touched probably thousands of lives in its nearly two decades of existence.

But without the platform of Meridian Bank, Chris and Charlie would never have been able to create this partnership on their own. Meridian was the vehicle that allowed them to change lives at scale. That’s the impact of having business leaders who live in and care about the communities they serve.

See, I think businesses are a tremendous economic engine to improve our communities. And while philanthropic support is a popular and effective method, perhaps an even more powerful and sustainable impact is that local businesses give people the opportunity to earn a good living.

To earn excellent salaries.

To create generational wealth.

To earn health benefits for their families.

To build a 401(k) and a fulfilling career.

Businesses can give people a place to come to every day in a building that feels like home with people that feel like family.

I have one more story for you.

In 2004, an entrepreneurial local college student named Dave Krysiak approached Meridian Bank for a loan. Dave had an idea — to buy and sell used textbooks.

He was onto something! And with just a business plan, he was asking for $25,000.

Now, as a college student, Dave didn’t have much of a history of running successful businesses, no credit score or collateral, or many of the other qualifications banks typically look for in a borrower. All of this made a $25,000 loan very unlikely for any bank to do.

But Chris and Charlie have a saying at Meridian: You bet on the jockey, not the horse.

They took the meeting with Dave, they listened to his story, and they believed in him and his entrepreneurial vision. So, they did the loan anyway.

Dave Krysiak went on to become very, very successful. In fact, he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in our region.

After Belltower Books, Dave took his success and started investing in other local businesses and entrepreneurs.

Through these investments, Dave has created hundreds of jobs, giving people in our community the opportunity to earn an excellent living, to take care of their families and have fulfilling careers — the opportunity to earn generational wealth and work for a strong company.

The ripple effect was tremendous.

But, without a local business like Meridian, Dave may have had to go to a larger bank, one outside of our community, where a 19-year old college kid might not get the chance to sit with a bank CEO and talk about his business plan.

Dave’s story illustrates the impact that strong, local business leadership can have on our communities.

Dave Krysiak is just one of hundreds of business leaders I’ve had the pleasure of crossing paths with in my nearly 15 years at Meridian Bank. And I can tell you with zero reservations that the business leaders in our community will do far more for Chester County than any politician ever could.

Being part of running a business gives you a platform to make decisions that improve lives in our community on a grand scale. In fact, many of you are probably here because a business that someone else built nominated you for this award.

Represented in this room tonight, I see the business legacies of many Chester County legends. In addition to Chris and Charlie of Meridian Bank, there’s Gary Holloway and his team from GMH Communities, Jerry Parsons and his team at CTDI. There’s Ken (Knickerbocker), Steve (Knickerbocker), Kim (McGuane), Rebecca (Krug), and the incredible group at VISTA Today.

These are people who have already left a legacy, people who have used business as a platform for change, people whose stories we will be telling long after they are not around to tell them anymore.

Now, this calling that I’m describing to you is not for everyone. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, right? I’m sure every business leader in this room can attest to the fact that it’s not easy to be in their shoes. But if there’s anyone who could rise to this challenge, they’re probably in this room.

You know, I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately that talk about the next generation, and how they only want to pursue work that feels authentic to them, with a company that aligns with their social values.

But I wish they would be asking instead: What about your contributions to your community, to your family, to your neighbors, to society at large?

We are not entitled to a legacy.

But if we are lucky enough to build one, our legacy will not be about what our work has done for us. Our legacy will be what our work has done for others.