Welcome back to our Compliance Superhero Series! Every month, we highlight a compliance professional who is doing excellent work and ask them about their background, their thoughts on the industry, and any hidden superpowers they have. I’ve reached out to Marvel about adding them to the next phase of the MCU, but in the meantime, you can get to know them here. This month, we’re highlighting Ryan Bowling, the Vice President and Director of Marketing at OMB Bank. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Welcome! Tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at OMB Bank.
My name is Ryan, and I am the Marketing Director at OMB Bank, a $1.9 billion community bank based out of Springfield, Missouri. We’ve got nine locations and recently expanded into the Kansas City market. So, that’s very exciting for us—especially in the last couple of years, as OMB Bank has experienced significant growth.
What was your path to the compliance space?
Although I’ve been at OMB Bank for the past three years, I started in bank marketing over a decade ago. Initially, I focused on digital marketing, but my role grew as I advanced in my career. Now, I lead the marketing efforts at OMB Bank for both creative strategies and compliance.
Before that, I spent 10 years as a community newspaper journalist. That’s what my college degrees are in—I have dual degrees in journalism and writing. My foundation in communication really developed through journalism. I worked for a community newspaper outside of Springfield for about a decade, honing my ability to communicate ideas and stories. That experience laid a strong foundation for marketing.
I’ve always had a creative side, but my real strength is storytelling. Sometimes that means writing long-form articles, but in marketing, it can mean crafting a message for a billboard that has to catch someone’s attention in under six seconds. How do you tell a compelling story in such a short span? Journalism really helped me develop that skill as I transitioned into a marketing career.I really enjoyed my time as a journalist. In fact, the Missouri Press Association named me Young Journalist of the Year.
What compels you about the work you do?
The biggest challenge is ensuring that disclaimers and disclosures are appropriate for the products and services you’re marketing.
For the most part, compliance regulations don’t change often. Occasionally, we see new requirements—like the FDIC’s new digital signage rules—but generally, we know what needs to be included when advertising a rate or loan. The key is staying on top of those details.
One challenge is helping creative teams understand why certain compliance elements are necessary. For example, they might design a beautiful ad and then get frustrated when they have to include a disclaimer in fine print at the bottom. I totally get it—it feels like it cramps the design.
But I try to emphasize that those disclaimers build consumer trust. Even if an ad isn’t directly about trust, that small legal disclosure signals transparency. When the creative team understands that, they’re more likely to embrace compliance rather than seeing it as just another hurdle. That’s an ongoing challenge, but it’s an important part of what we do.
What’s your biggest piece of advice for a successful compliance program?
I think there are three or four key things that make a substantial difference—at least, they really have for us, and I think they could help anyone, regardless of their situation.
First, make compliance a collaborative effort. Get compliance and marketing together at the very beginning of any project—whether it’s just a simple ad copy or a full-year campaign. If compliance is involved early on, they’re much more likely to say yes at the end, rather than coming in later and having to reject or heavily revise something that’s already been created.
Second, invest in education. Encourage your creative team to attend compliance seminars and your compliance team to attend marketing seminars. It’s so important for both sides to have a high-level understanding of each other’s work.
Third, use the right technology. We’re fortunate to have a partnership with PerformLine, and that technology has helped streamline our processes significantly. Having a system that allows us to upload creatives, automatically check for compliance, and give compliance a clear view of what needs to be reviewed saves so much time. For example, if our CFO decides we need to launch a CD rate special tomorrow, we need to move fast. If all of our processes were manual, that would be nearly impossible. But the right technology makes it happen efficiently.
And lastly, communicate early and often. My background is in communication, so I preach this all the time, but it truly solves so many headaches before they even start. Clear, open communication between marketing and compliance is key to a successful program.
What’s your secret superpower?
As a so-called geriatric millennial, I grew up with the MCU, Marvel movies, Batman, Superman—you name it. But if I had to pick a superpower, especially in the world of compliance and marketing, I’d say it’s vision.
I feel like my superpower is bridging the gap between creativity and compliance, and having the ability to see how the two can work together seamlessly. It’s about looking ahead and envisioning how we can bring compliance and marketing into alignment so that we can create something impactful without sacrificing one or the other.
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Want to hear more from Ryan? Be on the lookout for his full interview on the COMPLY Podcast!
