- Key insight: Citizens Financial Group has expanded President Brendan Coughlin's responsibilities, giving him oversight of another line of business.
- What's at stake: Coughlin, who is considered the likely successor to longtime CEO Bruce Van Saun, is racking up leadership experience across the bank.
- Forward look: Van Saun, 69, has not announced any retirement plans. But he recently told Bloomberg that Coughlin is the "obvious candidate" to take over when he "goes into the sunset."
Citizens Financial Group has expanded the role of President Brendan Coughlin, giving him oversight of commercial banking and further positioning him to be the regional bank's next CEO.
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Coughlin, 46, is now overseeing all of Citizens' primary lines of business, including consumer banking, private banking and wealth. He also continues to lead several enterprise functions, including marketing and enterprise data and analytics, and he's steering Citizens' multiyear project to overhaul its technology platform, largely through the use of artificial intelligence.
Coughlin is widely considered to be the heir apparent to Citizens Chairman and CEO Bruce Van Saun, who's led the $227.9 billion-asset bank since 2013. Van Saun, 69, has not announced any details about his potential retirement plans, but he has been thinking about what will happen when he "goes into the sunset," according to comments he made in a Bloomberg article published Wednesday.
"I'd say the obvious candidate to [take over as CEO] is Brendan," Van Saun said in the article.
In the bank's press release announcing Coughlin's broadened duties, Van Saun said: "Brendan has consistently shown he can take on broader responsibilities and deliver impressive results."
"Adding commercial banking to his remit is a natural next step in broadening and deepening his experience across all aspects of the bank," Van Saun added.
Coughlin, who joined Providence, Rhode Island-based Citizens in 2004, was named president in April 2025. It's a title that Citizens had not used during the first decade it operated as a public company.
During Coughlin's 22-year tenure at Citizens, he has held several titles, including head of consumer deposits, payments and lending businesses, head of consumer banking and vice chairman. He began his career at FleetBoston Financial prior to its acquisition by Bank of America in 2004.
According to the company's most recent proxy statement, Coughlin racked up several notable achievements in 2025. The list includes the ongoing expansion of Citizens' private bank, which launched in 2023, and continued momentum in the consumer bank, where Citizens has focused on attracting stickier deposits.
He was also credited with shaping the strategic vision of the "Reimagine the Bank" program, which the bank has said will lean into AI to achieve goals such as revamping call-center operations, optimizing vendors and providing digital advisory services.
As part of the change announced Wednesday, Ted Swimmer, Citizens' head of commercial banking since October 2025, will now report to Coughlin, the bank said. Swimmer, who will continue to be a member of Citizens' executive committee, previously reported to Don McCree, the company's onetime chair of commercial banking. McCree retired in March.
Citizens' commercial bank includes corporate banking, private capital, commercial real estate, treasury and wholesale payments, and the capital markets and advisory business.
During the first quarter, Citizens acquired substantially all of the assets of Matrix Capital Markets Group, a boutique M&A firm in Richmond, Virginia, that advises convenience retailers, wholesale fuel distributors, propane and heating oil distributors, and lubricant distributors. The all-cash deal added to Citizens' sector-focused advisory capabilities, the bank said at the time.
In May, Citizens' expanded its wealth capabilities by adding a new insurance advisory team. The Insurance Solutions group will be led by Michael Herron. Herron previously built and led the insurance division at First Republic Bank, which failed during the 2023 banking crisis.
Citizens is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings report on July 16.
