Our Service 1st culture: Recognizing those who go above and beyond

Named after our firm’s founder, the Robert A. James Award of Service Excellence program recognizes associates who embody our Service 1st culture and live our core values of putting clients first, acting with integrity, thinking long term and valuing independence.

Congratulations to the following associates and teams who were recently recognized for their exemplary service in the third quarter of fiscal year 2025.                

Michelle Townley | Lead Sourcing Associate | St. Petersburg, FL

Townley consistently goes above and beyond the expectations of her role as a lead sourcing associate. Earlier this year, she played a critical role in ensuring compliance with the European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), successfully executing contract amendments in a short timeframe. This showcased her ability to manage complex, cross-functional initiatives well beyond her typical sourcing responsibilities. At the same time, Michelle maintained a high-volume workload, completing the second-highest number of procurement request forms with zero errors, and served as the third-party liaison for her group. She also contributed to process improvement discussions, offering insights that enhanced procurement operations across the board. Her work reflects Raymond James’ values of client first, integrity and long-term thinking.

Michelle’s contributions had a significant and lasting impact on both her team and the broader firm. Her efforts elevated team performance and demonstrated a deep commitment to Raymond James’ values in every aspect of her work.

Cindy McGhee | Senior Client Service Associate | Sumter, SC

Cindy began her career in the investment industry in 1988. She joined Travis McIntosh’s team in August 2016 at Truist Investment Services (formerly BB&T Scott and Stringfellow). Together, they joined Raymond James and established the Sumter office in September 2021.

With a wealth of knowledge, Cindy serves as the team’s relationship manager and is the primary point of contact for all client service needs. She listens attentively to clients and works efficiently, with exceptional attention to detail. Cindy values relationships and is deeply committed to supporting clients’ current and future needs. When their team moved to Raymond James in 2021, her efforts were instrumental in moving and retaining around 97% of clients in rapid fashion (around 60 days). Cindy continues to be a resource and someone clients can rely on.

She and her husband, Bill, have four children – Matthew, Ryan, Alyssa and Billy – and six grandchildren: William, Elijah, Easton, Emilee, Waylon and Townes.

Cindy also has a few four-legged family members: Sassy (Rottweiler), Diesel (Blue Pit), Dakotah (Rottweiler), Weston (Chocolate Lab), Harper Grace (Yellow Lab) and Sugar (Alaskan Malamute mix). She enjoys spending time with family, attending concerts with her daughter, shopping and relaxing at the lake or beach.

Cindy always goes above and beyond to create the perfect client experience. Daily, she comes in with a positive attitude, wanting to help clients and advisors and ensuring our office runs efficiently. She does all this while making sure our office adheres to compliance rules.

Tyler's day-to-day role focuses on researching and resolving the most complex issues and escalations presented to Loan Operations by both our clients and internal service partners. He’s committed to delivering solutions that do right by our client, while also best positioning the bank for success. He looks at each scenario as an opportunity to improve processes, as well as analyze whether clients will be impacted. As a result of his analysis, he has proactively identified and resolved numerous client issues, many of them before the client had the opportunity to feel the impact.

Most importantly, Tyler acts as both a subject matter expert and peer mentor to the broader Loan Operations team. Beyond the direct contributions to his team, Tyler provides ad hoc support to many service partners across the bank, including sales, client service, technology, data quality and more. As an example, a key member of our business support team was recently planning for paternity leave. He was the only one who possessed the skillset necessary to input data into our loan system by developing custom scripts. Tyler volunteered to learn the process, and within a few short weeks, was able to develop his skills enough to effectively cover the workload.

Tyler exemplifies each of the core Raymond James values by striving to deliver quality solutions to complex challenges, while always keeping our client and employee experience in the center of his thought process. 

Brian Seboly | Margin Analyst | Memphis, TN

Brian works in the margin department of Raymond James but always helps when needed, going above and beyond his scope of work. He is very patient, respectful, professional and diligent. His work ethic is exemplary, guiding us on how to do things and explaining in detail when we cannot find answers. He is always detailed and willing to assist in getting things done.

Brian puts client satisfaction as his number one priority and always helps us financial advisors in our time of need, so we can resolve issues quickly and with little to no impact on the client. With Brian, processes become seamless. We are lucky to have him and hope others learn from his work ethic to go above and beyond. 

This team worked relentlessly to solve, test and train others to get a new billing system for Asset Management Services implemented. The countless hours spent working on this included up to 100 hours a week, Saturdays and Sundays, starting at 3 to 4 a.m. and sometimes signing off after midnight. Not only did they need to make sure their teams were trained, but they also needed to make sure all processes were able to be executed appropriately. They made sure there was no negative impact on the client, advisor or firm, and the transition in April to the new system was relatively seamless.

The sheer dedication and pride that this team demonstrated to ensure everything was processed appropriately and there were no billing issues for the client, advisor and firm are an inspiration and represent the caliber of associates that we should all strive to be.

The Robert A. James Award of Service Excellence is an internal Raymond James recognition delivered to individual employees or teams. Established in 2014, The Robert A. James Award of Service Excellence recognizes associates who embody the Raymond James values and uphold our commitment to service through their exemplary actions. Nominations are accepted on a rolling basis and the nomination committee composed of 11 firm leaders awards the distinction quarterly. This may not be representative of any one client’s experience, it’s not an endorsement, and is not indicative of future performance. No fee was paid in exchange for this award/rating.