The Most Powerful Women to Watch, No. 19, Melinda Chausse, Comerica Bank

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When then-Michigan-based Comerica acquired a community bank in Texas in 1988, Melinda Chausse was asked to develop training and recruitment programs in Dallas.

Chausse was halfway through Comerica's two-year training program for commercial bankers, but she took the assignment anyway.

She did not intend to stay more than a couple of years. "But I got here and very quickly loved the entrepreneurial spirit of being on the ground floor of a bank that was going to be built from that original acquisition."

Comerica ultimately followed Chausse to Dallas, moving its headquarters to the city in 2007. In 2020, she was named the bank's chief credit officer after leading a three-year project to reorganize its credit operation. She oversees credit quality on outstanding loans totaling about $50 billion.

"We decided that we needed to think differently about how we were going to support the growth of the organization going forward," said Chausse, who previously worked on the bank's business lending side.

The bank had operated on a decentralized model, where credit decisions were made by staff in each market, each doing things their own way, she said. Her assignment was to develop a regionalized hub approach and create standardized policies and procedures.

The change was not always popular internally, as it disrupted decades of established practice, Chausse said. But the new model is more efficient, scalable and supportive of Comerica's loan growth.

"We absolutely know that we are able to deliver in a more consistent fashion from a turnaround perspective and a quality perspective," Chausse said.

Chausse is now overseeing two additional projects. One involves upgrading Comerica's risk-rating platform to improve efficiency. The second entails improvements to the digital experience for small-business customers, a market where Comerica has been investing heavily, she said. The project is expected to wrap up by early 2026.

"Being really, really efficient at delivering small-business solutions to our small-business customers is really critical," she said.

In the midst of her work, Chausse was named interim chief risk officer in May following the departure of the previous chief for another job. "The last couple of months have been spent on supporting the risk organization and ensuring that we do not lose any momentum," she said.

While Chausse has moved through a variety of roles at Comerica, her community involvement has been relatively stable. She has been a supporter of the United Way and the March of Dimes, eventually becoming chair of the latter's board.

In 2024, she joined the board of a nonprofit called Girls Inc. of Metropolitan Dallas, which serves girls in elementary through high school, primarily from lower-income families.

"I just love everything that they stand for, which is to ensure that girls have the opportunity to grow up strong, smart and bold," she said.

Chausse sees it as an extension of her work inside Comerica to ensure opportunities for women. There were not a lot of women in commercial banking in Texas when she moved there in the late 1980s, she said.

"It warms my heart that it looks so different today," she said.