Coming out of college, Hope Dmuchowski thought being a CFO looked like the most boring job in banking — basically,a glorified accountant consumed by GAAP compliance and audit reviews. She changed her mind watching the role transform over two decades in the industry.
"I spend more time on 'how do we increase shareholder value, than accounting minutia," she said. "It's my job to figure out how to fund that: How do we layer in new branches, new technology, and how do we deliver for shareholders while continuing to invest?"
Dmuchowski became CFO of publicly traded First Horizon in 2021, at 42. She handles a diverse slate of responsibilities beyond strategic financial planning, including Treasury, Wall Street investor relations, corporate real estate, bank data analytics, product pricing and, yes, accounting.
Under her leadership, First Horizon has delivered four consecutive quarters of 15% or higher adjusted return on tangible common equity, or ROTCE, a threshold the company raised twice in the three years since terminating its merger agreement with TD Bank. Every time the bank met its target, investors asked what came next, she said. Each time, she doubled down, extending the ROTCE goal.
The growth has come less from balance sheet expansion (loan growth for regional banks has been modest) and more from deepening existing relationships. A $100 million pre-provision net revenue initiative has pushed First Horizon's bankers to earn more from clients already on the books, especially in commercial real estate, for example.
Behind the revenue story is an operational overhaul driven by Dmuchowski. First Horizon migrated — onto Oracle — its general ledger, accounts payable, fixed assets, HR and payroll systems off platforms which, in some cases, dated back 40 years.
The bank also filed its first-ever recovery and resolution plan, the so-called living will that regulators require detailing how critical functions would continue in a failure scenario. Dmuchowski had done one before, at a prior institution, and understood that the hard part isn't the document itself but instituting the organizational knowledge and processes around sustaining the plan — "the operationalizing it," she said.
Dmuchowski's financial acumen and no-nonsense analytical clarity are what drew Diane Paddison to recruit her earlier this decade for the board of 4Word, an organization supporting women's professional development. Through 4Word, which Paddison founded after serving as COO of then-public real estate developer Trammel Crow, she has seen the skills that set Dmuchowski apart from others in the demanding environment of a public company executive. "You have a CFO with just the highest integrity, and her work ethic and her ability to work with people with all different strengths. Knowing how to bring a team together is really important."
This past year, every First Horizon team member took a training course designed by Dmuchowski and five other executives to focus on First Horizon's identity and its direction. The results are clear: Last year, First Horizon shares rose nearly 19%, besting its peer group handily, and this year, boosting returns to shareholders through a $1.2 billion stock buyback.
"It really ignited a passion and shared commitment," Dmuchowski said.
