Quickly climbing the ranks at TD Securities over the last 16 years, Liza Januzi, regional head for financial institutions, Americas, displayed her leadership chops when charged at the start of 2025 with developing and implementing a long-term growth strategy for the overall unit. (In April of this year, Januzi was promoted to head the financial institutions (FI) unit of the bank's global transaction banking (GTB) business segment.)
She and her team built the strategic vision and identified key competitive components to grow GTB's FI business over the next five years. They also developed a realistic roadmap and reassessed how to use talent as effectively as possible. With that analysis in hand, she distilled a concise strategic plan that she presented to senior leadership, not just in GTB but also in the corporate and investment banking and global markets divisions.
When any of the typically older, more experienced leaders pushed back on various elements, such as the goal to double the FI business within five years, she had at her fingertips the detailed variables and scenarios her team had analyzed to achieve each step. The support she generated also served to reaffirm the interconnectedness of the bank's different business lines, particularly given the FI unit's role as gateway to TD Securities' other banking, market and transaction services.
"Her strength is seeing the opportunity for the entire bank, not just for her individual line of business," said Tamara Finch, head of GTB at TD Securities until retiring last February.
An indication of her success, said Vincent Iarocci, head of GTB, was the FI unit's 22% increase in payments volume since the start of 2025, "a significant win given the slow origination cycle for financial institutions."
The relationships she developed as a liaison across the $2.1-trillion asset bank to engender support for the FI unit's strategic plan have also enabled Januzi to respond more effectively to financial-institution clients' needs, connecting to the bank's range of capabilities. They include capital markets, foreign exchange and payments, liquidity, clearing and trade finance.
"Internal relationships are just as important as external ones," she said.
Januzi's ability to communicate and collaborate with clients as well as bank colleagues, from associates at the bank to its top executives, stems in part from her long tenure at TD Securities—her first employer after university.
Her wide-ranging experiences may also play a role. She arrived in Canada with her family as ethnic Albanian refugees from war-torn Kosovo. They moved to several cities across Canada, including Halifax, Winnipeg and Toronto, and now she is stationed in New York City, a goal she had had since childhood.
"She started at TD in junior roles, succeeded at everything that was thrown at her, and keeps looking for more responsibility," Finch said.
