Learning to manage people was an important step for Anne. “As a personal banker, I was able to motivate myself all the time. With management, I had to figure out how to motivate others,” she says. What has she learned? “Show you care for employees. Understand they have a life outside of the bank, too. Support their growth and education while they’re here. And just as with your customers, you should ask them lots of questions.”

How is working at a delicatessen like working at a bank? “You can ‘meat’ lots of people there,” Anne Kagerah says. “Just kidding — that was a ‘cheesy’ joke.” More seriously, she notes, both types of business also depend on understanding customers’ expectations and offering good service and quality products.

Another similarity is that the Pewaukee branch manager and AVP has worked at both. She managed a staff of 13 at a deli before being hired by North Shore Bank 25 years ago this month.

“My mom told me North Shore was looking for employees at the Pewaukee office, and I’d just purchased a home a block away from there. So I decided to apply,” Anne says.

It has worked out well. She started as a teller and moved up the ranks, to universal banker, personal banker, and assistant branch manager before taking her current position in 2019.

“She really made me feel welcome as soon as I walked into the Sussex branch,” says Brookfield Square assistant branch manager Mariella Zarb. “She was a great coach and really helped me grow in my new role there.””

When she first started at North Shore, Anne says she felt the Pewaukee branch was overstaffed — she was one of nine employees there. At the same time, she says, “I was very used to being super busy and moving all day long. I was not computer-savvy, so that was a struggle for me too.” She recalls her manager handing her a pile of documents that she jokes “were written in Greek,” and asking her to organize them into binders. “I probably left that in a mess!”

But she found her footing in due time.

“Customers seek Anne out as they know she is efficient and accurate, and she is pretty funny too!” says her boss, district manager Cristen Baumann. “They’re always stopping by to share a story, a good laugh, or ask for financial advice.”

Brookfield Capitol teller supervisor Rosanne Pulvermacher, another longtime colleague, concurs. “Anne is a great person to work with. She has a very dry sense of humor, and she’s been a great asset to the bank.”

“She is a great leader and has been loyal to the bank, her customers, and her employees,” says Brookfield Square area manager Maria Baumer, who has worked with Anne at Brookfield Capitol, Pewaukee, and Sussex. “And she is a woman of many talents! She can play the bagpipes, scout out mushrooms, and ride a Harley!”

Indeed, just last month, Anne successfully foraged for wood ear mushrooms while walking off Thanksgiving dinner with the family. She has also been learning about fermentation — making a wide range of things, from bean tempeh to kimchi, to sauerkraut, sourdough, and wine.

Back in 1997, Anne says, she’d never have believed she’d stay at North Shore Bank for 25 years.

“I really like the sales end of the job and meeting new people all the time. Here you get to know more about the client and their family and life plans, and help them through those steps in life,” she says. But back then, she says, “I was used to changing positions or locations under the same employer every one to three years. If you’d told me, I would have laughed.”