Gunjan Kedia appears positioned to become U.S. Bank's next CEO

Gunjan Kedia, one of U.S. Bancorp's most senior leaders, has been promoted to company president, a step that some analysts say positions her to someday become the Minneapolis-based bank's CEO.

In her new role, Kedia succeeds Chairman and CEO Andy Cecere, who has also held the president title since 2016. As president, Kedia will retain her current responsibilities as the head of wealth, corporate, commercial and investment banking, and she will take on the firm's other two business lines, payment services and consumer and business banking, a company spokesperson said Monday.

Cecere, who is 63, has made no announcements about any impending retirement plans. But U.S. Bancorp's two most recent CEOs — Cecere, who got the top job in 2017, and his predecessor, Richard Davis — were promoted from the president role.

U.S. Bancorp said that Kedia will continue to report to Cecere, but the company declined to comment Monday about its CEO succession plans. In the eyes of some analysts, Kedia's promotion sends a strong signal about what's ahead.

"My impression is that she's the most likely candidate to succeed Andy," said Scott Siefers, an analyst at Piper Sandler who covered U.S. Bancorp during its two most recent CEO transitions.

There's no indication that any sort of leadership change is imminent, Siefers added.

Historically, "U.S. Bancorp has been very methodical and transparent" about its CEO changes, he said. "So Gunjan gets the title today, and she'll see how well that suits her over the next few years, and when everyone is comfortable, it's quite possible she's the successor to Andy."

Kedia, 53, has been one of the highest ranking executives at U.S. Bancorp since she joined the $654 billion-asset company in 2016 as vice chair of wealth management and investment services. A little more than a year ago, her role was expanded to include leadership of the bank's corporate and commercial banking division as part of a series of leadership changes at the time.

Kedia is one of 16 people — and one of three women — on U.S. Bancorp's managing committee.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser is currently the only woman at the helm of a top-50 U.S. bank. The ranks of women bank CEOs were thinned last year when BMO Financial Group bought Bank of the West, ending Nandita Bakhshi's tenure as the San Francisco bank's CEO, and when Kelly Coffey lost the top job at Royal Bank of Canada-owned City National Bank.

Kedia is a six-time American Banker Most Powerful Women in Finance honoree, most recently in 2023 when she secured the No. 15 spot on the list. In her most recent role, she oversaw about 11,100 direct and indirect reports. As president, that number has now more than tripled to 37,000, the company said.

Prior to switching over to U.S. Bancorp, Kedia worked at Bank of New York Mellon for four years and at Street Street for eight years. She is a former partner at the consulting firm McKinsey.

Gunjan, who is from India, came to the United States to earn an MBA at Carnegie Mellon University. In India, she earned an engineering degree, one of few women to do so at the time.

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In a press release announcing the promotion, Cecere called Kedia "a visionary leader" with "an unwavering commitment to serving our clients, building strong teams and living our values."

"She will partner with me and our entire managing committee as we continue to chart our course for the future, and she will build on her proven success to drive further growth across all our business lines," Cecere said.

Kedia has become "fairly visible" to investors in recent years by attending industry conferences and other events, according to Siefers.

"My best guess is that she will become even more visible over the next couple of years, so that there's no shock to the system should anything more official come down the pipeline," he said.