Christine Pierson
EVP, Consumer Services Division, UMB Financial
Christine Pierson is new to the banking business, but already she is showing a "genius" for it.
She joined UMB Financial in 2010, after spending nearly two decades in sales and marketing at AT&T and Bayer. It was the prospect of a challenge that drove her to switch to banking. "I'm kind of industry agnostic," Pierson says. "UMB Financial came up on the list, and of course banking had gone through a big change in the aftermath of 2008."
In her role as executive vice president of consumer services, she oversees the $17 billion-asset company's 112 branches, its service center and its online and mobile banking. Of the changes she has made at UMB so far, Pierson is particularly proud of having started a "digital genius" program. Associates schedule one-on-one meetings with customers to discuss offerings like online checking and bill pay. In about one-third of the more than 3,750 appointments last year, customers were introduced to mobile or online features that they hadn't previously used. The number of customers who reported using at least three self-service banking options jumped to 80% at the end of 2013, compared to 20% before the digital genius program started.
