Two of Bank of America’s post-crisis executives to retire

Two prominent figures who helped lift Bank of America out of the financial crisis ten years ago will retire at the end of the year, the bank said Thursday.

The departures of Anne Finucane, vice president of the bank and one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, and Thomas K. Montag, chief operating officer of the bank, open the door to new leadership at the summit of the second largest bank in the country.

Both played a crucial role in restoring profits and rebuilding the company’s image after the bank took a reputation and a major financial blow from the housing market collapse in 2008. The purchase by Bank of America’s subprime mortgage giant Countrywide Financial during the collapse made him one of the most vilified players in the crisis. Over the next decade, the bank paid $ 76.1 billion in fines, the highest number among the nation’s largest banks.

Ms Finucane, the bank’s chief image overhaul architect, will become non-executive chairwoman of the European banking arm of Bank of America and join its global advisory board, the bank said. Mr. Montag will also join the board; the bank said succession plans will be announced in a few weeks.

“I am very proud that we have repaired the reputation of the company,” Ms. Finucane said in an interview. “The management team got involved and we worked together to improve everything we could: the customer experience, the number of companies we would be in, the culture.

Ms. Finucane, 69, has often been the person the bank turns to when taking a stand on contentious issues. When she pulled out of funding companies making military-style assault rifles for civilians in 2018, she voiced the bank’s position. Ms Finucane did it again when the bank decided to stop lending to companies that run private prisons and detention centers in 2019.

Ms Finucane even had Brian Moynihan, the low-key CEO of Bank of America, appear in a 2018 commercial that aired during “Sunday Night Football” and “This is Us” as part of the rebranding campaign. It was the kind of straightforward personal approach that would have been unthinkable a decade earlier.

“Anne has been a trusted advisor and invaluable partner for many years,” Moynihan said in a statement. “Since being one of the few female senior executives in financial services today, she has provided unprecedented strategic insight. “

Ms Finucane, who leads the bank’s efforts on environmental, social and governance issues, also rallied financial companies to do more to tackle climate change.

“She has been one of the leaders in helping open people’s eyes” to the role businesses can play in tackling the climate crisis, said John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy and former chairman of the bank advisory board. “She is very wise about the course of current events.”

A more polarizing figure is Mr. Montag, who joined faltering brokerage house Merrill Lynch shortly before it was acquired by Bank of America at the height of the mortgage crisis. He was instrumental in rebuilding Bank of America’s profits – for years he was paid more than Mr. Moynihan – and prompted his investment bankers to save fees during the market tumult of 2020, while traders have also reaped a boon from the market volatility caused by the pandemic.

Mr Moynihan said Mr Montag, 64, joined the bank at “one of the most difficult times in the history of financial services” and skillfully steered it towards responsible growth. “We will be remembered for Tom’s work ethic, innovative thinking and dedication to clients and teammates,” he said.

Mr. Montag has been described by his supporters as intelligent, charismatic and caring. But under his leadership, some employees felt pressure to be in the office even as the bank’s competitors adopted work-from-home policies, or risked not being a “friend of Tom’s.”

“It’s rare to find a leader like Tom who combines capital markets expertise with the ability to connect and motivate people,” said Hank Paulson, former Treasury secretary and head of Goldman Sachs. “Clients love working with him, he gets results and he does it with integrity. “

While Mr. Montag helped rebuild the Wall Street branch of banking after the crisis, Ms. Finucane helped lead efforts to convince critics that Bank of America had become a better corporate citizen.

She oversees public policy for the bank, which this year committed an additional $ 10 billion to an affordable housing program through 2025. After George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed in police shootings, the bank promised 1 billion dollars over four years to advance racial equality. And as the minimum wage debate heated up, he announced plans to increase his base salary to $ 25 by 2025, just days before Mr. Moynihan and other bank bosses were due. testify before lawmakers.

An advertising specialist by trade, Ms. Finucane was in charge of marketing at FleetBoston Financial, a company which was later acquired by Bank of America. She was leading strategy and marketing for then chief banker Ken Lewis when the national real estate market collapsed in 2008.

As her influence grew, Ms Finucane became vice president in 2015 and was a rare high-profile woman on Wall Street, although she lacked traditional banking experience.

“It’s hard to walk away if I have a point of view, because I’m just going to stick to it,” Ms. Finucane said. “What I lack in terms of talent, I make up for in terms of endurance.”

Ms. Finucane was born in Massachusetts and has cultivated deep ties to Democratic politics. Mr. Kerry is a close friend of Ms. Finucane and her husband, journalist Mike Barnicle, a regular contributor to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. Another family friend is Christopher J. Dodd, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut.

“There’s something about the water in Massachusetts – they’re imbued with political antennae that the rest of us don’t have,” Mr. Dodd said.

Mr Dodd, co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act that reshaped Wall Street and was fiercely opposed by the banks, said Ms Finucane was a pragmatist who recognized that increased regulation was inevitable after the Great Recession. Although she is not a politician, she is good at reading in a play, and “she is a very good judge of people,” he said.

Dina Powell McCormick, deputy national security adviser under the Trump administration who now leads Goldman’s sustainable development and inclusive growth efforts, said Ms. Finucane’s ability to navigate the world of business and government has amplified its efficiency.

“She invests in friends and she invests in women,” said Ms. Powell McCormick, who worked with Ms. Finucane on loan initiatives for women entrepreneurs through the Tory Burch Foundation. “I would say she was one of the first to reach out to other women and try to build this community.”

Dressed in colorful scarves, hoops and voluminous short hair, Ms Finucane said she was not afraid of being one of the few female executives in high-level negotiations on Capitol Hill.

“Sometimes,” she said, “being the different person in the room makes you the person others feel they can confide in.”