EVP, Head of Retail Banking and Chief Customer Officer, PNC Financial Services Group
PNC Financial Services Group is increasingly leaning on Karen Larrimer to help transform many of the ways it interacts with customers.
Larrimer became the chief customer officer at the Pittsburgh company in March 2014 and then added the title of head of retail banking earlier this year. Given her experience as chief marketing officer and chief customer officer, Larrimer said she has a good understanding of customers' changing expectations.
"I know what they care about most from their bank, the role they see us playing in their financial well-being and the pain points experienced in dealing with banks," Larrimer said. "My intent is to address those head on and to ensure that PNC is known for being the easiest to bank and invest with and has the fastest and fewest steps in all things that we build going forward."
Larrimer was chosen to lead retail banking because of her track record of strategic leadership and building great teams in other roles, said Bill Demchak, PNC's chairman and chief executive.
"She is an exceptionally talented, smart and capable business leader, and she is a trusted advisor whose counsel I greatly value and have relied upon as a member of the PNC executive committee since 2013," he said. Larrimer has been a champion of innovation, spearheading the launch of the bank's first innovation lab, called the iLab, in 2015. The lab features a full-scale model of PNC's branch of the future, which includes next-generation physical layouts and technology.
Achieving a healthy work-life balance is a challenge for Larrimer, who has four children — 6-year-old twins, an 11-year-old and a 28-year-old. She is active with area nonprofits, but said she will not join their boards if they expect her to be at every meeting or every event. "Staying true to the limits you set and being clear about them to others is what brings about the balance," Larrimer said. "And, those boundaries are different for every individual. It has to be your boundaries, not based on someone else's expectations."
