Tech Talk: Jack Henry’s David Foss reflects on career and company in Q&A

David Foss, who previously served for nearly a decade as CEO at Jack Henry & Associates Inc. (Nasdaq: JKHY), is nearing the end of his time with the Monett-based financial softwaree company. He is slated to exit his board chair position on July 15, officials say. Foss, who started with Jack Henry in 1999, served as president from 2014-22 and as CEO 2016-24. He became board chair in 2021. Foss recently spoke with Springfield Business Journal to reflect on his more than quarter-century career with Jack Henry, his thoughts on leadership and how the company is positioned for the future.

SBJ: After exiting the CEO post for the company in 2024, as Greg Adelson succeeded you, you transitioned into the executive board chair role for a year followed by the board chair position. What made now the right time for you to retire?
David Foss: It’s the logical time for me to ride off into the sunset. I’ve done my job to help through the transition and make sure that everything goes smoothly and now this is the right time given all of that. … I’m just stepping into the board chair role of this other company and so it worked out great. The company’s called WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX). They’re a payments company, a financial company. They don’t serve banks and credit unions, so they don’t compete with Jack Henry in any way. They are a payments company that serves a few different industries. They serve the trucking industry, they serve the healthcare industry, and then they serve commercial businesses that are trying to make payments to other commercial businesses.

SBJ: Reflecting on your career with Jack Henry, what do you consider among the most significant accomplishments for the company during your tenure? 
Foss: People ask me sometimes, they assume that me becoming CEO was kind of the highlight of my career, and certainly the CEO role was significant. But I think the biggest thing for me at Jack Henry was when I first got here. I joined the company in 1999. In about 2003, Mike Henry was the CEO at that time. So, Jack’s son, Mike, was running the company, and he came and asked me to take on a role where we were going to acquire a whole bunch of companies and create a whole new business within Jack Henry. And it ended up becoming ProfitStars. We don’t use that name anymore, but for about 15 years we used that brand. So, my job was to go out and find companies and lead the team that acquired these companies. Then we sold these software and services through this brand called ProfitStars. That was a really, really hard job, but it was really fulfilling. It was really fun in the end. We created a whole new division of the company, brought in millions and millions of dollars of revenue to the company. And it was something that nobody had ever done before. So, for me, that was really the highlight was that opportunity to go build that business within the company and bring in all these other great companies and great employees into Jack Henry. Toward the tail end of my career, we made the announcement about our technology modernization strategy. We announced that about five years ago, so about three years before I exited the CEO role. That was a big deal in the market, but that was our technology team really innovating around new technology. And so, the announcement got a lot of press, and it’s game-changing for Jack Henry in the long run. So, I’m really proud of what we’ve done there.

SBJ: What will you miss about working for the company?
Foss: The people. There’s no hesitation. I’ve been very involved over the years with our employees and with lots of customers, and we have just an outstanding team of associates at Jack Henry scattered all over the country. I’ve done lots of CEO roadshows around the country, love doing those, being in front of employees. Then just being with customers and helping customers run their business better. I already miss working with the people. Then there’s the day-to-day work stuff that’s interesting, and it’s stimulating and all that, but the people that you get to work with every day, that’s really something.

SBJ: How has Jack Henry most significantly changed over the course of your career? And was a lot of that in response to industry and technology changes?
Foss: I’ve been in the business 41 years, but I’ve been at Jack Henry for 27 years. So, I’ve been around for a long time in the financial technology space. When I first got to Jack Henry, the internet was just becoming a thing for banks and credit unions, and for us as a company. When I first started 41 years ago, everything we developed was with the employee of the bank or credit union in mind. So, we wrote software with the idea that the bank or credit union employee would use what we delivered. Today, much of what we deliver, we deliver with the idea that you, the consumer, are going to be using it. It’s an app on your phone; it’s something that you’re doing on your iPad or your PC. So, design and usability and all that kind of stuff is a big deal for us today to make sure that you, the consumer, can intuitively use these solutions. Whereas in the early part of my career, we didn’t care about you, the consumer – no offense – but you never used our stuff. We cared about, ‘Is this understandable by the employee of the bank?’ And if they get confused, they will turn to a manual, and they’ll look something up in the manual, and they’ll figure it out. That whole world has totally changed now. And then of course, along with that, the technology that we use today, totally different. We used to deliver software in-house all the time, meaning we would install it at your bank. Today, almost everything we do is online, hosted in either our data center or a big provider.

SBJ: What have you learned about yourself in the various leadership roles you’ve held at the company?
Foss: I’m passionate about the topic of leadership. Probably 30 years ago, when I was first taking on a leadership role, one of the managers that I worked for didn’t quite say these words to me this way, but she was kind of expressing how to be a good manager. And what I learned is if you’re a good leader, you really are focused on the success of your team more than you’re focused on the success of yourself. Because if your team is successful, you will be successful. When you’re kind of coming up in the ranks and you’re kind of a junior manager, oftentimes you think of, ‘Oh, it’s all about me. It’s me being successful.’ Once you really make that transition into being a leader, then that’s when you realize that it’s about your team being successful and if they’re successful, then that will bring success to you. So, it’s not about me, it’s about you and making sure that you have what you need to succeed. That learning that happened a long time ago for me, I think has really served me well as I’ve been focused on building teams and trying to make sure that the company is successful. Well, the only way to make the company successful is if the teams are successful and have what they need in order to perform.

SBJ: What are the challenges the company and the fintech industry itself face in the coming years? 
Foss: Speed is one thing. Everything is changing so fast. (Artificial intelligence), of course, is on the one hand a fantastic tool and solution. It’s going to change everything we do. On the other hand, it’s a threat because now people think they can do anything with AI. I think it’s just the really rapid advancement in technology, between AI and everything else that we’re doing. It’s a challenge to make sure that you not only keep up but stay ahead of emerging competitors as well as our traditional competitors. It’s a challenging environment, but we have a great team and so we’re well positioned to do that.

SBJ: As you step away, how is Jack Henry positioned for the foreseeable future?
Foss: Well, so that’s back to when I talked about our announcement about five years ago of our technology modernization. If we hadn’t done that, I’d be really nervous today. We have competitors out there who have not done what we’ve done because it’s really expensive, and it’s really time consuming, and it’s a little scary to essentially rewrite everything you do. The good news is we took the time; we spent a lot of money reinventing our technology stack and so we’re positioned really well today for the future. We can take advantage of all these emerging technologies better than, as far as I’m concerned, anybody in the industry. So, I think we’re in a great position today to not only defend the turf that we already have, but to win new customers.

SBJ: Aside from your new board chair role, is there a next chapter for you professionally?
Foss: I’m done. It’s interesting when you announce your retirement, when you have a successful career and a decent reputation, you announce your retirement, you get a lot of calls, a lot of people who say, ‘Hey, come and do the same thing for us.’ I’ve been there, done that. I absolutely loved every minute of it, even the bad times when you work yourself through it and the bad stuff ends up turning out good. I’ve loved all of that. I’ve loved my career, but I’m done. I’m old, I’m ready to slow down.