Truist adds New Jersey team as part of targeted growth push

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

Truist Financial has hired a middle-market banking team in New Jersey as part of a recently disclosed plan to increase its scale in existing but under-tapped markets.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company — which has also identified Pennsylvania and Texas as places where it expects to drum up more business — announced the New Jersey hires on Wednesday.

The new four-person team, which joined Truist from Citizens Financial Group, is providing corporate finance, credit and cash management products and services to midsize companies across the Garden State.

All four of the newly hired bankers joined Truist in late 2024, a company spokesperson said in an email. Commercial banker Gino Di Saverio is leading the group. Di Saverio joined Citizens in 2023 to help grow its presence in northern and central New Jersey.

Di Saverio has also worked at Columbia Bank in New Jersey; JPMorgan Chase, where he spent more than 13 years; and PNC Financial Services Group, according to his LinkedIn profile. He reports to Travis Rhodes, Truist's regional president for New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the spokesperson said.

Expanding in faster-growing markets where Truist has a smaller presence, including New Jersey, is one of five areas of opportunity for Truist in 2025, Chairman and CEO Bill Rogers said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call in January. The $531 billion-asset bank, whose physical footprint covers 14 mostly Southeastern states and Washington, D.C., is also zeroing in on talent, technology, deeper client relationships and expense discipline this year.

In January, Rogers told analysts that Truist had already hired about 25 new bankers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas, and that there could be more branches and "other types of investments" in those states.

"These are markets that we've been in for over a decade in most cases," Rogers said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. "So this isn't new in terms of markets, but it is new in terms of investment and momentum and the things that we can offer those markets."

In addition to Di Saverio, Truist's new middle-market banking team in New Jersey includes Michael Kourtis, Scott Tricarico and Michael Vara. Kourtis spent more than 15 years at Wells Fargo before joining Citizens in November of 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. He focuses on midsize companies with revenues between $100 million and $1 billion, Truist said.

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Tricarico previously worked at GE Capital, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and JPMorgan Chase, his LinkedIn profile shows. He has focused on New Jersey companies with $20 million to $1 billion of revenues. Meanwhile, Vara worked at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase before a brief tenure at Citizens, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kristin Lesher, Truist's chief wholesale banking officer, said at an industry conference in February that Truist is "adding talent very intentionally" in markets such as New Jersey.

At a separate industry conference, Chief Financial Officer Mike Maguire also spoke about high-growth potential states.

"What makes them a little different than some of the markets we most often talk about at Truist is they don't have the same density of share profile that you might see in a Charlotte or an Atlanta or Orlando or Miami," Maguire said.

"And so our perspective there is, 'Hey, maybe there's an opportunity to surge incremental resources, add talent really across our whole franchise, both the retail and the wholesale side of our business, and drive some momentum and share gains there.' So we're doing that in those three markets and others."