Gena Wolbrecht, who heads up the newly launched investment program at BankTennessee, encourages potential clients to make some of the same considerations they do when they turn to other non-financial specialists like a doctor.

When you have a cold, she said, you might try to suppress it with over-the-counter medication. After a period of time, if that hasn’t done the trick, it becomes clear you need to leave behind the one-size-fits-all solution and see a doctor, someone who specializes in your particular ailment and is trained to deal with it.

“They’re going to run some tests or evaluations – or financial checkups, in my case – to make sure they’re giving you the right medicine to hopefully make that big difference and make that change for you,” said Wolbrecht, who spent 29 years at Regions before joining Collierville-based BankTennessee in August.

Gena Wolbrecht is head of BankTennessee’s new investment banking division.  (Daily News/Houston Cofield)

She’s the new program manager for BTN Wealth Services, BankTennessee’s new service through which it offers investment and wealth management solutions to its bank customers. The services are offered through a partnership with Cetera Investment Services as the broker-dealer and Cetera Investment Advisers as the registered investment adviser.

Wolbrecht has already hit the ground running and set a schedule for herself that takes her out to each of the bank’s eight branches throughout the week.

On Monday and Friday, she’s at the bank’s home office in Collierville, while the rest of the week she splits her time between the rest of the branches – from Munford to Ripley, a second location in Collierville, Lebanon, Downtown Memphis, East Memphis and the bank’s Forest Hill location.

It’s so she can build relationships with the teams across the bank’s footprint and make herself available to customers.

“The reason I chose BankTennessee is the relationship they have here in the Memphis market,” she said. “I’m from Memphis and have lived here all my 47 years and felt like this was a good fit. Community banking – they do banking the way I love it being done. More hands on, traditional. And they really had a missing piece, and that was the wealth division.

“With Regions and my position there, I was doing a lot of traveling,” she said. “So this keeps me closer to home. I’m home every night with the family, and I get to do what I love, back in front of customers. And not just in management, so I get the best of both worlds.”

About Wolbrecht’s hire, BankTennessee president and CEO Jim Rout said that her nearly three decades of experience in the financial services industry will help “investors navigate the myriad of available investment options.”

And those investors include customers at all levels of wealth, from those just out of college who want to start building for retirement to professionals currently in their career who want to grow their retirement funds as much as they can.

BTN Wealth Services, Wolbrecht said, also helps those in their retirement years. Along with clients whose needs include business succession planning and full service brokerage-related needs including stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.

“So just being really holistic in helping people fill the gap in their wealth planning, regardless of what stage they’re at,” she said.

Prior to joining BankTennessee, Wolbrecht was senior vice president and platform investments executive for the licensed banker platform program at Regions Investment Services. She also has served as a FINRA arbitrator since 2002, among other career distinctions.

What she likes about the work is “it’s helping people change their life and helping people understand the things that are out there that can help protect them.

“It’s one thing being in banking, helping their money grow and keep it safe,” she said. “But then helping protect their families and provide for their futures and helping plan for their dreams. It makes you feel good, being able to help people.”