JPMorgan Chase's Duckett to depart for top job at TIAA

Thasunda Brown Duckett, the highest-ranking Black executive at JPMorgan Chase, is set to exit the company after 17 years to take over as president and CEO of TIAA in New York.

The CEO of Chase Consumer Banking since 2016 and one of the most powerful female bankers in the industry, Duckett will succeed Roger Ferguson Jr., who had planned to retire from TIAA on March 31 but will now stay on until Duckett starts on May 1. Ferguson will also remain on TIAA's board of directors.

Duckett, 47, will oversee a financial services organization that manages $1.3 trillion of assets and offers a range of services including investing, banking and retirement services. TIAA substantially increased its banking capabilities when it acquired Jacksonville, Fla.-based EverBank in 2016 and today the banking arm has $41 billion of assets and 14 offices, primarily in Florida.

At Chase, Duckett leads a business unit with more than $600 billion of deposits, more than 40,000 employees and 4,900 branches. She is also spearheading the company’s latest branch expansion initiative, a five-year-long strategy to add 400 new branches in 20 new markets across the country.

In a press release, TIAA board chairman Ronald Thompson praised Duckett as “an exceptionally dynamic and inspirational leader” who is also “deeply mission-oriented.”

“She brings invaluable experience leading and growing large, complex businesses, setting and executing strategy, improving client experience and attracting and development talent,” he said.

Duckett, who grew up in Texas, joined JPMorgan in 2004 and served as chief executive of its auto finance unit before being named CEO of the consumer banking unit in 2016. She is the executive sponsor of the company’s Advancing Black Pathways program, a member of the steering committee for its Women on the Move initiative and the executive sponsor of the Fellowship Initiative, a program that offers academic and social support to young men of color.

Her experience makes her “the right person” to lead TIAA “at a time when its work has never been more important and when the challenges of fostering financial stability and inclusion have never been greater,” Ferguson said in the release.

Duckett’s promotion last fall to JPMorgan’s operating committee made her the first Black woman to serve on the leadership team and she has been a mainstay on American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Banking list in recent years, including in 2020.

Duckett’s career started at Fannie Mae, where she led affordable housing initiatives for people of color.