Kate Danella, head of Regions Bank’s consumer banking group, said she sees an opportunity for the bank to reach out to consumers who are concerned about their financial situation.
Although consumers are generally financially healthy, they still face some degree of uncertainty as rising interest rates and inflation drain their savings, Danella said.
“It’s a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity,” Danella said. Regions has an opportunity to strengthen its role as a relationship-based bank by helping customers build financial confidence through customized plans. He also said that through the bank’s digital banking strategy, relationships with customers could be “further deepened.”
“We want to help them track their finances and make banking simple and intuitive,” she said.
Mr. Danella assumed the leadership role of the company’s consumer banking operations in Birmingham, Alabama in 2022 after leading product design, pricing and marketing for the consumer bank, and in 2021, he joined the company’s newly digitally reserved Oversaw a 36% increase in savings accounts and loans. We employ more than 8,800 people in 1,250 branches throughout the South, Midwest and Texas.
As the head of a consumer bank, customers are at the center of every decision, she said. “How will it benefit our customers? How will we innovate in terms of ease of use and convenience? How will we enable our customers to achieve their own unique goals?”
This idea permeates every aspect of consumer banking.
“Everything we do, from refining the customer experience to enhancing our solutions to creating simpler and more intuitive ways to achieve financial goals, must start and end with the customer.” Danella says Mr. “That’s our North Star.”
Despite inflation and high interest rates, Regions’ retail bank added customers in 2023 as it shifted its focus over the years from transactions to providing advice and customized services, he said. To that end, retail banks offer free digital money management tools, financial education courses, and reduced or no fees.
In 2023, Regions delivered more than 855,000 personalized financial plans to individual and small business customers through its free Greenprint program. The bank and its associates also provided financial education to more than 1.8 million people through the free Next Step program in 2023, providing 14,000 volunteer hours to do so.
Danella said part of her responsibilities as a bank leader, and as a corporate leader in general, are to mentor others and identify and develop talent for the long-term growth of the company. He said that it is something to do.
“If we want to reap all the benefits that come with being an inclusive company, we need to intentionally support the next generation of leaders,” she said. “This requires looking outside your own network, building relationships, asking questions, and committing to time and opportunities.”
Danella is a strong believer in investing in other women. It is important to do so through direct experience. “Young women need to make sure they are present when it is important to build relationships so they can find the right mentors and sponsorship networks,” she said.
In addition to the women she mentors on her own team, she mentors 10 other women across the bank. “Mentoring is really putting your life into it and sharing your life with someone else,” she said.
Danella began her career as a banker at the request of her father, Henry Pettus Randall. In 2002, while a PhD student in Lithuanian studies at Cambridge University, she called with the news that she was dying of pancreatic cancer. He asked her to do two things. One, she said, is to work in banking or finance for two years and make the world a better place.
He was a successful small business owner and served on the board of directors of a local bank, a profession he valued because of the lessons and support he learned from his bankers. “That’s what my father knew about the power of banking relationships,” she said.
“This is a skill that my father wanted me to have,” Danela said, adding that her experience working as a banker “helped me realize that through banking, you can make a difference and change the world.” He taught me,” he said.
Banking has a clear purpose: helping people achieve their goals through a personalized path to financial well-being, Danella said.
“When they succeed, our banks succeed and our communities grow,” she added. “That makes every day of my banking career special, with new opportunities to change lives and help our communities thrive.”
