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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Women Find Success in Executive Ranks at Local Banks

Banking and finance is still, by and large, a man’s world, but in the Valley, more and more women are taking their place at the top. Among the community banks and credit unions that are headquartered in the region, there are many female executives: chief executive officers, chief operating officers, chief credit officers, chief administrative officers and chief financial officers. Executive vice presidents abound as do regional managers. “It’s changing a little bit, but I thought we’d certainly be a lot further along when I started in banking decades ago,” said Anne Williams, executive vice president, chief credit officer and as of May, chief operating officer for California United Bank. Many of the women in these high-level positions today were the beneficiary of large bank management training programs that have been decimated by cost pressures and competition. Ten or 15 years ago, smaller banks relied on the majors to prepare the future managers. “In community banks like mine,” said Tamara Gurney, president and CEO of Mission Valley Bank, “we typically would look to the larger institutions to find folks that would come through their training program and we would hire them as branch managers and bring them into our world.” That’s how Williams got her start. As a French major, she needed a lot of basic training which Chase Manhattan provided in their formal program that took one to two years to complete. “We went industry by industry by industry and it was fabulous training that really doesn’t happen much anymore,” she said. With those types of programs virtually gone, the community banks have to invest a lot more time and money of their own on entry-level employees that might have the right stuff. They now send staff to programs put on by groups like the California Bankers Association or Western Independent Bankers. “We actually hired a person who does nothing but train,” said Gurney. At Lockheed Federal Credit Union, they have put in place a formal succession planning process for every management position. “In that plan, we identify folks from within the company that could eventually step into a certain management position,” said Ana Fonseca, LFCU executive vice president and chief financial officer. “I would call them high-potential folks they know early on that they have an opportunity here and they start working towards developing the right skills and knowledge.” As part of the succession planning process, managers identify a set of goals that a person would have to accomplish to learn and grow to finally get into that type of position. The plan is reviewed on a regular basis. The old fashioned way But there’s always the old fashioned way, too, which consists of starting at the very bottom rung as a teller or a secretary and just plain working hard and showing an interest in every aspect of the business. That’s how Gurney did it. “I started as the secretary to the president at my last bank,” she said. “There was no formal training it was all on-the-job training.” Twenty years later she was chief operating officer of American Pacific State Bank. When the bank was sold, she began applying for jobs with other banks but clients encouraged her to start another community bank. So she did. A similar tale is told by LFCU’s Fonseca. “I started as a receptionist,” she said. That was in 1986 at a precursor company called Lockheed Finance. “As long as I was willing to put in the time and effort and the work, and was learning I was always given opportunities.” She said that Lockheed has always been very open to diversity and now has “a pretty fairly allocated senior management team in terms of males and females, and in our middle management also.” There are some traits that are often considered “feminine” that are exactly the traits needed in a good banker, all agreed. “It’s definitely a people business,” said Gurney. “You have to be good at multi-tasking and handling things that come your way. The women that have made it to the top are very strong in those areas.” That sentiment is echoed by CUB’s Williams: “Women are generally intuitive, bright, anticipate needs and, of course, are hard workers.” But, she added, banking, especially at the community level, is first and foremost about relationship building. “Banks give money to people and hopefully they pay you back,” said Williams. It’s still the case, she said, that a far greater percentage of business owners are still men, and often they still expect to speak with another man when it comes to building a banking relationship. So while change comes slowly, it is happening. Gurney is encouraged by the younger generation of women who are not only “very bright,” but also seem to be more confident and less likely to hang back in a meeting while the men throw their ideas around. These generational changes and the evolution of banking itself into a less regimented and more dynamic and responsive industry all bode well for even more women on their climb up the management ladder.

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