Most Powerful Women in Banking Top Teams: Sound Community Bank

By Mary Ellen Egan

October 5, 2022 8:23 AM

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

Sound Community Bank

Headquarters: Seattle

Assets: $959 million

Female representation among senior employees: 50%

Female representation on operating/management committee: 69%

Sound Community Bank hit a trifecta in its C-suite: a female chief executive, chief operating officer and chief human resource officer. In 2021, as the pandemic began to wane, CEO Laurie Lee Stewart decided to keep flexible working arrangements for the back office and administrative staff. "Rather than set a standard for required in-person attendance, we required managers to justify the need for workers to return to the office," she said. "As a result of this creative policy we retained, and promoted, several women." For example, one executive was able to move to an area with more affordable housing and she could be near her elderly parents. Currently, 62% of the bank's officers and managers are women.

Selected executive highlights:

Heidi Sexton

Chief Operating Officer

Heidi Sexton undertook the reorganization of the bank's staff mid-pandemic, with all service and support teams now reporting to her executive branch. The result: record-breaking earnings by allowing production team members to focus on client relationships, while having the operations team handle the business of banking. While two years earlier, Sexton led Sound Community's efforts to bank the cannabis industry, last year she recognized the need to extend lending specifically to owners of these businesses who were shut out of purchasing or refinancing their homes.

Erin Nicolaus

Chief Human Resource Officer

In 2021, in order to meet the demand for new hires, Erin Nicolaus broadened the scope of finding new job applicants and partnered with organizations such as Hiring Our Heroes, YWCA and BankWork$. She also conducted an extensive evaluation of the market, resulting in increasing all pay grades by 5% on top of an annual 5% merit pool. This year, Nicolaus launched a monthly series created to help supervisors be more effective leaders, and she also instituted "no meetings Friday," which allows employees to use the day to catch up on other work projects.

The Team

Laura Lee Stewart, Heidi Sexton, Erin Nicolaus, Diana Everett, Diane Harrison, Jennifer Mallon, Meghan Dort, Kirsten Pavlak.

See the other 2022 top teams: