The Most Powerful Women in Banking: No. 8, Kate Danella, Regions Bank

Kate Danella, head of the consumer banking group at Regions Bank , said she sees an opportunity for her bank to reach consumers who have concerns about the state of the economy.

While consumers are generally financially healthy, they still harbor a degree of uncertainty because they've drawn down savings due to higher interest rates and inflation, Danella said.

"That is a challenge, but it's also an opportunity," Danella said. Regions has a chance to enhance its role as a relationship-based bank by helping customers build financial confidence through customized planning. Also, through the bank's digital banking strategies, its relationship with its customers can "grow deeper," she said.

"We want them to be able to track their financial progress and to conduct their banking business simply and intuitively," she said.

Danella took the leadership role for the Birmingham, Alabama, company's consumer banking in 2022 after leading consumer bank product design, pricing and marketing, where she oversaw a 36% increase in new digitally booked deposit accounts and loans in 2021. The consumer bank has more than 8,800 associates working at 1,250 branches in the South, Midwest and Texas.

As head of the consumer bank, the customer is at the center of every decision, she said. "How does it benefit the customer? How does it innovate in terms of ease-of-use and convenience? How does it further empower a customer to reach their own, unique goals?"

That view permeates all aspects of the consumer bank.

"Everything we do — from refining the customer experience to enhancing our solutions to creating simpler and more intuitive ways of reaching financial goals — must begin and end with the customer," Danella said. "That is our north star."

Despite inflation and high interest rates, Regions' retail bank added customers in 2023 because of its multiyear shift in focus from transactions to advice, and to providing tailored service, she said. To that end, the retail bank offers free digital money management tools, financial education courses and reduced- or zero-fee services.

In 2023, Regions delivered more than 855,000 personalized financial plans to personal and small-business customers through its free Greenprint program. The bank and its associates also provided financial education to more than 1.8 million people, and contributed 14,000 volunteer hours in doing so, through its free Next Step program in 2023.

As a leader in the bank, Danella said, part of her responsibility — and the responsibility of leaders at companies in general — is to mentor others and to identify and develop talent for the long-term growth of the company.

"If you want all the benefits that come from being an inclusive company, you must be intentional about supporting the next generation of leaders," she said. "That requires taking it upon yourself to look outside your own network, build relationships, make the ask and commit to the time and opportunities."

Danella believes strongly in investing in other women; doing so through in-person experiences is important. "Young women need to make sure they are showing up when it matters to build relationships so they can find the right mentor and sponsorship network," she said.

Besides the women she coaches on her own team, she mentors 10 women across the bank. "Mentoring is really about pouring your life into and sharing your life with another," she said.

Danella started her own banking career at the request of her father, Henry Pettus Randall. She was a doctoral student in Lithuanian studies at Cambridge University in 2002 when he called with news that he was dying of pancreatic cancer. He asked her to do two things: Try working in banking or finance for two years and make the world a better place, she said.

He was a successful small-business owner who had served on a local bank board and valued the profession because of the lessons he learned and help he received from his own banker. "It is what my dad knew about the power of a banking relationship," she said.

"It was a skill set my dad wished he had and wanted me to have," Danella said, noting that her experiences working as a banker "showed me I could make a difference and change the world through banking."

Banking has a clear purpose of helping people achieve their goals through a personalized path to financial well-being, Danella said.

"When they succeed, our bank succeeds and our communities grow," she added. "That makes each day in my banking career special and a new opportunity to change lives and help communities thrive."