Truist's COO, who oversaw strategy revamp, resigns

Truist Financial on Monday said its chief operating officer has resigned and won't be replaced, the latest step to simplify the company's operations amid its yearslong strategy overhaul.

Hugh S. "Beau" Cummins III, a longtime Truist executive who stepped into the newly created COO role in 2023, has overseen efforts to reposition Truist after years of lagging performance. 

Cummins, who was also Truist's vice chair, is leaving following the "completion of several strategic initiatives" he helped move forward, the company said in an SEC filing. That includes the sale of Truist's insurance brokerage unit and the bank's strategy revamp.

Truist launched a cost-cutting campaign about 16 months ago and in September laid out a new profitability target of mid-teens return on tangible common equity. The target is lower than the low-20s goal that Truist previously set out to achieve after the December 2019 merger of BB&T and SunTrust Banks, a reflection that the combination of two Southeast powerhouses hasn't gone as planned.

A Truist spokesperson confirmed Monday that the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company is not planning to fill the COO position, which the bank had established as part of a management shake-up. Cummins' responsibilities are being shifted onto other executives.

"We regularly assess opportunities to streamline our organization and adjust to fuel the growth of our businesses," the Truist spokesperson said.

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Cummins, who became Truist's vice chair in 2021, was a top executive at SunTrust Banks before the merger and had been its co-COO. In 2023, his compensation package totaled $6.5 million, according to Truist's most recent proxy statement.

In its SEC filing, the $519 billion-asset company said its board of directors and management had a "deep appreciation … for [Cummins'] knowledge, expertise and purpose-driven leadership." 

Since the merger, Truist has struggled to consistently meet its target performance goals. But executives say the company is making progress.

In October, they said that Truist's 2025 revenue is expected to outpace expenses, which would mark the firm's first year of positive operating leverage since 2022. Hitting that milestone has been a focus since the merger.

The company did not achieve positive operating leverage in 2023 and it was not expected to achieve it in 2024. Truist is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on Friday.

In its SEC filing on Monday, Truist said that Cummins' oversight of its payments business will shift to Kristin Lesher, a former Wells Fargo executive who joined Truist last year as chief wholesale banking officer. Lesher also oversees Truist's corporate and investment banking arm, its commercial real estate group and its wealth division — three areas that Cummins had overseen before being named as COO. 

Cummins' other responsibilities will shift to Michael Maguire, Truist's chief financial officer. Those duties include leading enterprisewide operational services, the governance and controls groups and Truist's strategy, transformation and performance office, according to the filing. 

The company said Cummins played a major role in shepherding the sale of Truist Insurance Holdings, the bank's insurance brokerage firm, to a group of private equity investors. 

The deal, which resulted in an after-tax gain of $4.7 billion, gave Truist some capital cushion to offset the impact of a balance-sheet restructuring that dinged its capital. The bank recorded a $5.1 billion after-tax loss under the restructuring, which involved selling some $34.4 billion in bonds whose value had eroded when interest rates rose.

The bank said the moves gave it the ability to reinvest its cash in higher-yielding options.

"The sale of TIH significantly enhances Truist's financial profile and positions Truist to invest in and grow its core banking businesses," Truist Chairman and CEO Bill Rogers said in May.

Cummins' departure is the latest executive-level change at Truist. In November, the company promoted Brad Bender to the role of chief risk officer, effective immediately, following the pending retirement of Clarke Starnes III, who will leave Truist later this year.

Starnes, who originally worked at BB&T, was a vice chair at Truist along with Cummins.