On the football field and in the C-suite, Kam Kniss has found success

Kam Kniss has changed uniforms, but he still is playing quarterback.

These days the former North Central College QB calls the signals as Wheaton Bank & Trust CEO, leading a team of nearly 100 people. Just as he relied on his football teammates in college, Kniss leans on his colleagues in business casual at Wheaton Bank & Trust, a Wintrust bank.

"Our customers bank with us because of our people," Kniss said. "Our employees truly care about our customers and our community and they come to work every day to make a difference. This is reflected in our best-in-class service levels. And of course, having the breadth of products offered by Wintrust allows us to serve the needs of all our clients."

Like he did in college, Kniss has found success in banking. But he didn't take over at Wheaton Bank & Trust in normal times.

Calling an audible

Kniss' leadership skills were put to the test almost as soon as he assumed the Wheaton Bank & Trust job in February 2020. He'd barely had time to introduce himself to his new teammates when the COVID-19 pandemic threw everything into chaos.

"Forty-five days later we're shutting down branches, going through COVID protocols, operating branches in hybrid schedules, sending as many people home as you possibly can," Kniss recalled. "Literally 15 days after the whole COVID thing started, the government comes out with this program called Paycheck Protection Program, right? PPP.

"And so that was 60 to 90 days of I think the hardest any banker has ever worked in their lives because we knew the importance of what we had to do to help underwrite PPP loans and get the money out. Because there literally were businesses that were waiting on that money. That was the deciding factor of, am I going to maintain staff or am I going to let them go, because their revenues came to a screeching halt because the economy came to a screeching halt. That was an interesting time."

Ironically, he didn't gravitate to banking naturally.

Soon after graduating from North Central in 2007, he networked his way into a bank job as a credit analyst, an entry-level position in working with commercial banking, lending money to businesses and commercial real estate developers.

He found he really enjoyed it.

A couple of years later he took a job at Wintrust's offices in downtown Chicago. That led to his current position.

Kniss didn't have to be part of a turnaround job when he arrived at Wheaton Bank & Trust, but his leadership skills were tested during the pandemic. He credits the lessons he learned on the football field and the locker room for helping him on the job.

"Football itself is the ultimate team game, right?" said Kniss, who was inducted into the North Central College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017. "You have to have all 11 guys on the field doing their job.

"But I think it even starts back beyond that. You have to have all 100 guys on the roster doing their job. It leads up to game prepping, preparing for a game. And I think the success kind of on the field, converting into real life, is just continuing to have that mentality of you've got to do your job. You have to make sure everyone else is doing their job because it takes a team to ultimately get it done and provide the service that you need to be providing for your customers and clients."

Setting his path

Kniss arrived at North Central College in 2003 from Lanark, a town of about 1,500 people in northwestern Illinois. He was part of the first recruiting class of coach John Thorne, the legendary Wheaton Warrenville South High School coach, who left to take on a new challenge in Naperville.

"Anybody that had played quarterback, having followed the '99 Wheaton South Tigers, you knew the Coach Thorne story so you're like, well, obviously, you have to come check it out," Kniss said. "So he was a big reason, and then when I came to campus and met my future teammates, I fell in love with the place. And we had a ton of fun helping kind of build the foundation that we think has helped take that program from where it was to putting it on the trajectory to where it's gotten to now."

Under Thorne, Kniss and his teammates started something special at North Central, changing the culture and expectations of the football program. They not only stopped lengthy losing streaks to College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin rivals Augustana and Illinois Wesleyan, they started winning.

A lot.

And Kniss broke nearly every Cardinals passing record.

His senior season in 2006, the Cardinals won an NCAA Division III playoff game and the CCIW championship for the first time since 1960. Since then the Cardinals - under coaches Jeff Thorne, John's son, and Brad Spencer, Kniss' former teammate - have won two national championships.

"When we step back and look at the success of the program now, it's just incredible, quite honestly," Kniss said. "I was part of Coach (John) Thorne's first recruiting class, so a lot of us that kind of looked back on those days, we're like, man, I don't know if we could really see the field now. When we think about the talent that they've got coming into the program today. I mean, they're stud athletes, and they do a fantastic job."

From rivals to customers

It's also somewhat ironic that he's working in Wheaton now. Wheaton College is North Central's longtime rival. They play annually for the Little Brass Bell, a trophy that dates to 1946 and symbolizes a football rivalry that began in 1900.

Now Kniss and his former football rivals share memories and laughs.

"I'll bump into a lot of folks that went to Wheaton or that I played against, or played against in the CCIW, actually. We were, for sure, kind of enemies back then. Friendly enemies to some extent, a rivalry, but now it's a ton of fun to see them," Kniss said. "I look at my teammates and folks that we played against and you look at the success that they're having in their professional careers and it's a huge symbol of mutual respect across the board."

He also sometimes works with former teammates, helping their businesses with loans or other services. He also knows where to look when he has a position to fill on the bank's roster.

"We've got kids coming from North Central or Wheaton and we want to hire them, because we know what we're going to get," Kniss said. "We know we're going to get hardworking, disciplined, determined, can take feedback. Not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get after it."

It turned out to be a good way to find a CEO also.

Kam Kniss

Wheaton Bank & Trust CEO

Bank assets: About $3 billion at Wheaton Bank & Trust, $53 billion with Wintrust.

Staff: Almost 100 employees.

Family: Wife Bonnie. Children Krew, 9; Kal, 7; Khloe 4.

Hometown: Naperville.