The Most Powerful Women in Banking: No. 19, Megan Crespi, Comerica Bank

Moving Comerica's back-office employees into new digs in Farmington Hills, Michigan, was about more than just a change of scenery — it was a concrete manifestation of a recently adopted core value of making "the bigger possible."

That's the view of Megan Crespi, Comerica's chief operating officer. The new office has more natural light, sit-stand desks and 32-inch curved computer monitors, all designed with employee input.

Employees had some trepidation, since the move meant a slightly longer commute for some. Nonetheless, they are embracing the new space and it has helped people adjust to the idea of change more broadly, Crespi said.

"Using the physical environment, the real estate, as examples of 'we can change and it feels great,' I think enables us to point to those examples when we're thinking about things that are a little less tangible," she added.

Indeed, a big portion of Crespi's work involves things that are less tangible — such as enterprise technology, cybersecurity, data and analytics — but that are crucial to the company's future.

It was a technology role that first brought Crespi to the $79.6 billion-asset Comerica. She worked previously at online-only bank Ally and automaker General Motors, where she rose to global director of aftermarket information technology during a nine-year career.

Crespi joined Comerica in 2020 as chief technology and operations officer with the goal of leading the Dallas-based bank's embrace of a more-digital future. Under her leadership, the bank modernized its core platform, adopted cloud-based computing and rolled out new digital tools for customers and employees.

She became COO in February 2023, broadening her scope to include physical security, customer contact centers and commercial loan support operations. She also gained oversight of the bank's real estate strategy, known as Comerica at Work, or CoWork, which involves consolidating and standardizing office space. The new CoWork offices include the new Great Lakes campus; a business and innovation hub in Frisco, Texas; and satellite offices around the U.S.

"As banking has become more digital, as payments have become more digital, as lending has become more digital, we don't require the same size of operating facilities as we once did," said Crespi, who is based in Detroit.

It's not just about bytes and buildings for Crespi, who graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in psychology before earning a master's degree in information systems management from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. When she worked at GM, she said she told the company's chief information officer that her psych degree would come in handier than her tech degree.

"The business of business is all about people, and if you can't get the buy-in of the people who need to make things happen, you really won't be very successful," she said.

Crespi's philanthropic roles include Michigan chair for ResearcHERS: Women Fighting Cancer, a campaign to raise money for women-led cancer research, and board member of Inforum Michigan, which aims to help women overcome obstacles to careers.