The Most Powerful Women to Watch: No. 23, Zewditu Tizu Menelik, Huntington National Bank

Zewditu Tizu Menelik has spent her career in the center of some of the banking industry's biggest recent challenges. Now as many banks retrench, Menelik is making a different bet, growing and restructuring Huntington Bancshares' corporate, specialty and government banking segment.

Menelik was tapped to lead corporate, specialty and government banking at Huntington in October 2022, coming over from Fifth Third where she was the group head of diversified industries and international corporate banking. At Huntington, she has recruited away a specialized mortgage solutions team from Flagstar Bank, added financial services focused on federally recognized Native American tribes and started a national deposits group.

Perhaps the splashiest moves under Menelik's direction was the hiring of a fund finance team from Signature Bank — the group is based in Menelik's home city of Charlotte — and expanding into Dallas to serve corporate clients with $500 million to $1 billion in annual revenue.

According to Menelik, the Columbus, Ohio-based lender — whose majority of physical branches lie in Michigan and the Buckeye State — targeted Texas and the Carolinas because economic growth there is much higher "than in geographies that are in Huntington's historic footprint."

Also, while declining to name specific rivals, the Charlotte-based banker noted industry disruption in the Carolinas. One example might be the series of cuts at Charlotte-headquartered Truist Bank.

Menelik has spent half her time at Huntington identifying talent for new and expanded roles, she said. The banker also restructured corporate and specialty banking, which is now "organized by industry expertise coverage." This means adding personnel to lending areas such as tech and franchise, Menelik said, while establishing new areas including power and utilities as well as metal and chemicals.

Going forward, Menelik said her team of about 260 people is now "focused on execution, because we've got a lot of pieces of the puzzle and large elements of the strategic plan on board."

Menelik does not have the typical background of an American banker. She grew up in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, moving to the U.S. because she had a scholarship to Central State, a historically Black college in Wilberforce, Ohio.

She was drawn to banking "because of the fact that you could have multiple careers without leaving the industry."

One early job was joining Bank of America's Houston office following its client Enron declaring bankruptcy amid a notorious accounting scandal. "It was a great way to learn," she recalled. "How did that happen?"

Later, Menelik put her "hand up" at Bank of America, asking to relocate to their Charlotte headquarters to work on corporate treasury. Her role changed after the financial crisis, with Menelik joining Bank of America's fund finance team.  

Menelik is involved with an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and visits the country every other year, she said. In Ethiopia, one of her focuses is helping young people pursue a secondary education in the U.S. or Europe.