Katy Knox is president of Bank of America's private bank, which keeps growing even amid market jitters.
Private bank revenue climbed 9% to $3.6 billion in 2022. And in the first six months of 2023, revenue nudged up 2% to $1.8 billion.
Private bank client balances jumped to $577 billion in the first half of 2023, 6% more than the same time last year. The private bank added 2,600 net new clients in 2022, according to Knox, and added 1,930 net new clients in the first half of 2023. The private bank declined to provide its total client count.
Knox credited her team for recruiting clients already enrolled in other Bank of America divisions.
"In 2022, we made more than 10,000 referrals to and from other Bank of America lines of business, such as the global commercial bank and consumer bank," she stated. "Our goal is to be the best partner in the company, and our teams have done an amazing job enhancing and building those partnerships."
A Boston native, Knox has worked in the banking industry since 1986. She joined Bank of America in 2003, initially taking on the role as head of global treasury sales.
Knox has run the private bank since 2018. It is one of two units in Bank of America's private wealth and investment management division, along with Merrill Wealth Management.
Knox's responsibilities increased in January 2022, when she also took on responsibilities for a new Bank of America organization called wealth management and lending. Knox initiated the wealth management and lending division to digitize the account opening process, improve the custom mortgage process with new digital features and improve customer service. Those measures included implementing a "one-call" interaction standard in which the wealth management and lending division's ultra high net worth clients can be transferred to any division across the $3.1 trillion asset-size bank.
"We can pick up the phone and move mountains for our clients," Knox said.
Wealth management and lending's average loan and leases were $225 billion in 2022, a 10% increase from the prior year, a climb that BofA chalked up to increases in residential mortgage lending, custom lending and securities-based lending.
Such accomplishments came amid persistent inflation and Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, which shifted priorities for clients across the private bank. Some clients began to invest more in hedge funds and private equity funds, as well as what Knox termed specialty assets such as timber and farmlands.
Inflation also meant opportunities for her clients. "Higher inflation leads to higher exemption amounts, "allowing families to pass more assets free of estates and gift taxes," she stated.
Knox stressed the importance – particularly in a challenging market – of hearing the needs of each family member who is part of a wealth management account. "We make sure that we know every family member, and think about the family holistically," she said.
Besides individually meeting with families, the private bank convenes "next gen summits" for the "children and grandchildren of our clients." The forums create "a sense of community among attendees and a valuable peer network," Knox said.
They also allow younger investors to articulate their different financial priorities. Knox has seen younger investors focus more on potentially high-yield alternative investments, as well as on philanthropy and art services, compared to their parents and grandparents.
Younger investors are also part of a shift to digital adoption, Knox noted, as more than 90% of the private bank clients now use the Bank of America app, or digitally bank or move money online. That's an increase from about 75% digital engagement among customers when she first became president of the private bank. Knox, however, would like her private bank team to strike a balance between automation and traditional customer service.
"You want to be able to pick up the phone and call your private banker," she said.
In 2014, Knox began to take part in the Global Ambassadors Program, which is a female business mentorship partnership between Bank of America and Vital Voices, a nonprofit co-founded by Hillary Clinton.
Building on the successful virtual mentoring partnership between The Private Bank and South Africa-based Imbeleko, Knox and her team have worked to expand the mentoring program to new Imbeleko students and provide marketing and fundraising expertise, all in support of new boarding school to be built in 2025.
Knox's mentoring efforts also include working with The Haitian Project to provide supplies, technology and mentoring to Louverture Cleary, a secondary school in Croix des Bouquets, Haiti.
And in 2022, Knox led the effort to start a pilot mentoring program with Onward for Afghan Women, and the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security.
Besides helping to educate women in South Africa, Haiti and Afghanistan, her mentorship work connects Knox to early-career professionals and college students who are still mulling over their vocational paths.
Interns and summer associates are "right now mentoring 250 students in South Africa and over a hundred in Haiti." Knox believes that service work can help attract young talent to banking. "I often tell [interns and students] that you can find and explore your personal passions and your professional passion at the same time at Bank of America," she said.
