Wells Fargo, USAA and Old Dominion: Bankers on the Move

September 16, 2019 12:01 PM

Women executives headlined a number of key moves in the banking industry as summer wound down.

Wells Fargo hired veteran bank executive Colleen Taylor, formerly of Mastercard, to oversee its merchant services strategy. Taylor was named one of PaymentsSource’s Most Influential Women in Payments again in 2019.

USAA announced three women tech executive hires: Maria Alvarez Mann as its chief information officer for bank technology, Judith Frey as vice president of digital banking, and Carri Arnold as bank technology officer.

Melinda McClure joined Old Dominion National Bank in Tysons Corner, Va., as its chief strategy officer, and in August former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Sheila Bair was named to Fannie Mae's board of directors.

Retiring from banking was Karen Simon, one of JPMorgan Chase's most senior women executives. Simon, 60, had spent 36 years with the bank.

Following is a look at these and other recent industry moves:

Colleen Taylor oversees Wells Fargo's merchant services strategy

Payments vet is Wells Fargo's new merchant services chief

Wells Fargo announced in August that it had brought in veteran bank executive Colleen Taylor, formerly of Mastercard, to oversee its merchant services strategy.

Taylor, who was named one of PaymentsSource’s Most Influential Women in Payments in 2019, will also oversee Wells Fargo’s longstanding joint card-processing venture with Fiserv.

Taylor most recently was executive vice president at Mastercard, where she oversaw strategic initiatives beginning in 2017.

Before joining Mastercard, Taylor was executive vice president for eight years at Capital One, where she headed treasury management and merchant services, and prior to that she held various executive roles at Wachovia Bank and JPMorgan Chase.

USAA names three women to key technology positions

USAA continues to build upon its workforce diversity bonafides, naming women to three key technology executive roles.

In June, it announced Maria Alvarez Mann as its chief information officer for bank technology, and Judith Frey as the vice president of digital banking.

Those hires come after it announced in April that Carri Arnold joined the $86 billion-asset company as bank technology officer.

“These hires send a very clear message to our young women of today and tomorrow that USAA is recruiting women into these leadership roles,” Frey told American Banker.

Frey previously spent almost six years at Marriott International. Mann was managing director of global technology at JPMorgan Chase between 2003 and 2016. Arnold held similar technology roles at American Express and Wells Fargo.

USAA consistently ranks as one of the top workplaces in the country for diversity. Forbes has ranked the bank in the top 50 employers for diversity in the last few years.

More than half the bank’s 7,000 employees are women. USAA also has four women on a 15-person board of directors.

Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), speaks during The Economist's Finance Disrupted conference in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016. The conference will explore what the digital revolution means for finance and the broader economy. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

Michael Nagle Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

Former FDIC chair joins Fannie Mae's board

Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Sheila Bair was named to the Fannie Mae board of directors on Aug. 21.

Bair will serve on the Fannie board committees covering compensation, nominations and corporate governance, and risk policy and capital.

"Her vast experience and proven leadership in some of the world’s most prominent financial, regulatory and private sector organizations will provide unique and valuable insights to Fannie Mae," Jonathan Plutzik, the board’s chair, said in a news release.

Bair is a board director at several other organizations, including the Volcker Alliance, Thomson Reuters Corp. and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. She is also chair emerita of the Systemic Risk Council.

Shaza Andersen of Trustar Bank (right) and Mindi McClure of VisionBank.

Melinda McClure moves to Old Dominion Bank management team

After a joint effort to open a D.C.-based bank fell through, Melinda ("Mindi") McClure joined the $325 million-asset Old Dominion National Bank in Tysons Corner, Va., as its chief strategy officer.

McClure (pictured above, on left) was to be VisionBank's chairman and CEO, but told American Banker that competition made it difficult to raise capital for the venture.

McClure was joined by Richard Horn, who was to be VisionBank’s chief operating officer and general counsel. He is now Old Dominion's general counsel.

Old Dominion Chairman and CEO Mark Merrill said that talks with other employees are ongoing and that his firm plans to add five to 10 more workers by the end of the year from VisionBank and other financial institutions.

Karen Simon leaving JPMorgan after 36 years

One of JPMorgan Chase's most senior female executives announced her retirement this summer.

Karen Simon, 60, had spent 36 years with the bank, starting at one of JPMorgan's predecessors as an analyst in 1983.

She became a role model for many within the male-dominated investment bank as she took on an array of senior roles in New York, London and Dallas, including co-head of EMEA debt capital markets and chief of global financial-sponsor coverage.

Around 2013, when she discovered there weren't any women in the bank's oil and gas group in Texas, she formed a group of women from various product areas related to the sector to help them learn from each other and network.

Simon most recently led JPMorgan's director advisory services team, which helps company boards find new members. In her role, she encouraged companies to fill positions with more diverse candidates.

Discover picks outsider for CFO role

Discover Financial Services' newest chief financial officer is a former biotech and HSBC executive.

John T. Greene will succeed Mark Graf, who announced his retirement in June.

Greene most recently served as CFO at Bioverativ and earlier spent more than eight years at HSBC Holdings.

Discover, which announced the hiring on Sept. 13, said that Greene’s appointment will take effect Sept. 18.

“He joins the company at an exciting time as we increase our investments in the people and technology that enhance our operating model and continue to help us exceed our customers’ expectations,” CEO Roger Hochschild said in a press release.

The Riverwoods, Ill., credit card issuer disclosed in a securities filing that Greene will be paid a base salary of $700,000 and will be eligible for annual equity awards. He will also receive a one-time award of restricted stock worth $1 million, which will vest between 2020 and 2022.

Graf, a former CFO at Fifth Third Bank, will remain at Discover until early next year. He has been with the company since 2011.

Pedestrians walk past a Wells Fargo & Co. bank branch in New York, U.S., on Friday, April 13, 2012. Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. home lender, reported a 13 percent rise in first-quarter profit, setting a record as the bank made more money on new mortgages and curbed losses from old ones. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Wells Fargo shuffles consumer banking, wealth management executives

The scandal-plagued Wells Fargo assigned several executives to new roles on July 31 in an attempt to please regulators.

David Kowach, who formerly headed Wells Fargo Advisors, the bank’s retail brokerage arm, is filling a newly created position to head community banking. He will report to Mary Mack, the head of Wells Fargo’s consumer banking unit.

Several other executives who previously reported to Mack — including the heads of regional banking in the Eastern and Western U.S. — will now report to Kowach.

Wells Fargo Advisors will be headed by Jim Hays, who has been with the bank for 14 years and most recently headed its private wealth financial advisers group.

Wells also announced the creation of a new role overseeing the bank’s enterprise customer excellence team. The job will be filled by Andy Rowe, who previously served in another role in the consumer banking division. Rowe wil also report to Mack.

Pacific Mercantile names new CEO

Brad Dinsmore will return to the banking executive ranks after a stint as an industry consultant.

Dinsmore was named CEO by Pacific Mercantile Bancorp in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Aug. 29, according to a company press release.

Dinsmore recently served as the CEO of the bank consulting firm Stress2Confidence Management Consulting in Atlanta, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was corporate executive vice president at SunTrust Banks, where he was in charge of consumer banking, small-business banking, private wealth management and digital banking. He also held senior executive roles at Citigroup and Bank of America.

Dinsmore will succeed Thomas Vertin, who has led Pacific Mercantile since 2016. The company said Vertin stepped down to move to Northern California.

The $1.4 billion-asset company added Dinsmore will also become its president this month.

San Francisco community bank taps next CEO

A San Francisco community bank chose a Boston Private Bank regional executive to be its new chief executive.

Beacon Business Bank named John Delaney its CEO on Aug. 5.

Delaney previously was a regional executive and deposit sales manager for Northern California at Boston Private Bank. Earlier in his career, he held senior posts at Citigroup and Wells Fargo.

The $137 million-asset unit of Trans Pacific Bancorp. said in a press release that Delaney would also serve as its president.

Delaney succeeded Dennis Jang, who had been interim CEO since Robert Lussier’s retirement late last year. Jang will return to his prior post, chief financial officer.

Signage is displayed inside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, March 4, 2019. House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters will hold a hearing this week on the semi-annual review of the CFPB. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

CFPB picks student loan servicing exec as ombudsman

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Aug. 16 filled its private education loan ombudsman position, which had been vacant for nearly a year.

Taking up the role, formerly called the student loan ombudsman, is Robert G. Cameron.

Cameron, a former colonel and advocate for the National Guard, had been deputy chief counsel and vice president of enterprise compliance at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, one of the nation's largest student loan servicers.

The CFPB said Cameron was responsible for litigation, compliance and risk mitigation efforts at the agency.

He succeeds Seth Frotman, who is now the executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center.

In a string of enforcement actions issued Thursday, the Federal Reserve barred one former banker from the industry for misappropriating confidential supervisory information and fined three others for misappropriating internal bank records.

Fed exec to head development of its real-time payment system

Kenneth Montgomery, first vice president and chief operating officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, will lead the central bank’s development of its newly planned real-time payment system.

Despite the new role, announced Aug. 15, Montgomery will keep his Boston position. Montgomery has also served recently as the leader of the Federal Reserve System’s strategy on payments security.

The Fed announced its plan to build and operate the speedier payment system on Aug. 5. The decision was generally welcomed by small banks. But it displeased big banks that have collectively built their own real-time payment system and wanted the Fed to defer to the private sector.

The Fed has said that it expects its new service to be available in 2023 or 2024, and that achieving nationwide reach is likely to take longer.

HSBC CEO John Flint steps down

John Flint’s tenure as head of HSBC Holdings came to a sudden end on Aug. 4, as the bank announced he would be stepping down.

HSBC did not give a reason for the decision. Flint, 51, joined HSBC in 1989 and took over as CEO in February 2018. He was replaced on an interim basis by Noel Quinn, head of global commercial banking.

The CEO’s departure follows exits last month of U.S. head Patrick Burke and Greg Pierce, who ran the U.S. markets business.

The bank will now begin a search for a permanent replacement, including internal and external candidates, it said.