Rate volatility and economic anxiety made for a tempestuous year at regional banks across the country – especially in their residential and commercial lending divisions. But Angela Mago, president of Key Commercial Bank and KeyBank Real Estate Capital, looks back on 2022 as a shining moment for her team and a vindication of her bank’s longtime prioritization of developing relationships with clients.

To gauge success in her quest to enhance the customer experience at M&T Bank, Aarthi Murali examines key aspects of their behavior.

She can look at how long customers wait on the phone, for example, or how many times they have to click on the bank’s app to get to where they want to go. 

Suni Harford was handed one of the most challenging tasks of her career in early 2023 when UBS took over the ailing Credit Suisse in a $3.2 billion deal brokered by the Swiss government.

Kelly Coffey almost ended up working for the Central Intelligence Agency after graduating from Georgetown University with a master of science degree in foreign service. But instead Coffey opted for a riskier career — in banking. 

After 37 years in the banking industry, Diane Morais, the former president of consumer and commercial banking at Ally, retired in July.

Kerry White’s banking career began in 2012 on the trading floor at Citigroup. A native of Northern New Jersey, White had recently graduated from Harvard University and said she found herself “enamored with the concept of seeing the world unfold” from the perspective of the trading floor.

She was also drawn to the idea of building an international career, and Citi — one of the world’s largest banks with on-the-ground operations in 95 countries — could provide that opportunity.

Natalie Wech isn’t the banker one would expect to meet when walking into a branch of M&T Bank in southern Pennsylvania. The Zimbabwean native, who grew up spending summers visiting family in Greece, speaks five languages and had a previous stint as a professional ballerina before coming to the U.S. for university “to experience a different continent,” she said. 

As a student at Penn State, where she earned undergraduate and MBA degrees, Wech met Michael Murchie, an M&T regional executive who has since retired, at a student event. He convinced her that rather than leaving the U.S. after graduation, she should join the bank’s development program.

An employee benefit event at Synovus helped lead Willette Shalishali down her current career path. 

Shalishali joined the Columbus, Georgia-based bank after meeting with a recruiter at her alma mater, the University of Georgia. “I am originally from Columbus, Georgia, and it had this respected vibe in my head,” she said of Synovus. “I thought maybe I should move home for a little bit.”