Stephanie Novosel, head of commercial banking at PNC Bank, faced one particularly significant challenge in 2021. PNC completed an acquisition of BBVA's American banking business in June.
As integration lead for the bank, Novosel was responsible for leading the 100-person corporate and institutional banking team in onboarding close to 14,000 client companies and 1,600 employees; making leadership decisions in new markets across the Southwest; and overseeing integration of tech, risk management and business development activities.
This happened all in the midst of continuing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, which made onboarding new employees – many of whom were still working remotely – a particularly complex process.
Novosel faced this challenge head-on and led several programs to help ensure the new employees understood PNC's culture and felt connected to their new employer. Among Novosel's accomplishments in this area were launching a peer partner program, creating "a day in the life" training and recruiting peer volunteers from PNC to visit the new employees in-person in their various markets once COVID restrictions began to ease.
At the same time, Novosel continued to manage her usual "day job," growing the commercial bank to record performance, staying connected with clients and ensuring that both client and employee needs were met. Accomplishments included driving new loan production and client acquisition to pre-pandemic levels, supporting clients through the second round of Paycheck Protection Program funding and leading the redesign of the commercial bank's website.
Novosel also took steps to prevent turnover within her own 840-employee team amid the "great resignation"in the wake of the pandemic. She worked to make sure that all of her employees felt appreciated, understood their value to the company and had a strategic career-goals plan in place.
"People want to feel a direct sense of contributing to the best of their ability throughout their careers," Novosel said. "They need solid guidance as to the various ways they might accomplish that. A development plan should be there to remind us all that the next step, whatever it may be, is within reach and that we all have the ability to achieve, advance and thrive right here at PNC."
