Catherine Palmieri, a veteran of Citigroup Inc. and CashEdge Inc., has been hired as chairman and chief executive officer of a unit of TIAA-CREF.
As head of TIAA-CREF Trust Co. FSB, Palmieri will run trust and banking activities and report to Edward Van Dolsen, TIAA-CREF's executive vice president and chief operating officer, according to an email that Van Dolsen sent to employees.
Palmieri took over the banking business from Nancy Heller, who will play another role later this year, the email said. Dale Keyser remains president of the trust company and reports to Palmieri.
Palmieri was most recently global head of product and marketing for CashEdge, a banking and payments technology vendor based in New York. Fiserv Inc. is acquiring CashEdge in a deal expected to close this month.
Palmieri worked at Citi from 1997 to 2008, and was the managing director of Citibank.com when she left. Her work at Citi included kick-starting the adoption of online bill pay by enticing prospective customers with an offer of the then-hard-to-find iPod Mini in 2004. To get one of these devices, which were scarce even in many Apple stores, a consumer had to agree to pay bills online at Citi for at least a year.
