Citizens looks within for its next commercial banking head

• Key insight: Citizens Financial has a new head of commercial banking, following an announcement that one of its most senior leaders plans to retire next year.
  
• What's at stake: The regional bank has spent much of the past decade building out its commercial bank, one of three main businesses it operates.
  
• Forward look: Citizens' executive management team will change again in coming weeks when its new CFO joins the company.

The leadership team at Citizens Financial Group is changing again, this time as a result of promoting from within to replace the chief architect of the bank's commercial banking platform.

The $218.3 billion-asset regional bank announced Tuesday that Don McCree, senior vice chair and the head of commercial banking, is planning to retire at the end of March 2026. Effective immediately, Ted Swimmer, the head of capital markets and advisory for the past eight years, will succeed McCree, Citizens said in a press release. McCree, who has spent the past decade building out Citizens' commercial bank, will serve as chair of commercial banking until his exit.

"Under Don's leadership, we've built one of the best-positioned commercial banks, one with the scale to compete with larger institutions while also delivering personalized advice, solutions and service to clients at every stage of their business life cycle," Chairman and CEO Bruce Van Saun said in the release. He called Swimmer "a highly capable leader" who has "built a strong capital markets and advisory business" and has also "attracted great talent to Citizens."

The change is the latest shakeup among Citizens' C-suite. In March, Beth Johnson retired from her job as chief experience officer. At the same time, Brendan Coughlin was promoted to head of consumer banking, private banking and wealth management. A month later, Coughlin was named company president in addition to his consumer-focused role, while Chief Financial Officer John Woods announced his plans to leave for a new job as State Street's finance chief.

In May, Matt Boss joined Citizens from TD Bank to oversee Citizens' consumer banking group. Meanwhile, the bank hired Aunoy Banerjee, the CFO at Barclays Bank PLC, to succeed Woods.

Banerjee is scheduled to join Citizens on Oct. 24, a bank spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

There are no vice chairs on the 10-person management team, marking a change from a year ago when the Providence, Rhode Island-based bank had three vice chairs — Coughlin, Woods and Johnson — and a senior vice chair, a title bestowed on McCree in June 2024 as part of the board's executive succession planning process. According to a regulatory filing, the board elevated McCree "to recognize his strong performance and leadership" in growing the commercial bank and "in recognition of the importance of maintaining executive continuity."

McCree had retired from JPMorgan Chase after a 31-year career when he decided to meet with Van Saun about building out Citizens' commercial bank, which at the time was narrow in scope and largely focused on New England and the Mid-Atlantic, McCree said in an interview last year.

"What I saw was an opportunity to really build a platform from the ground up, so it had an entrepreneurial aspect to it," McCree told American Banker. "I thought there was a pretty high chance of success … and it's actually been better than I ever expected."

Today the commercial bank offers a full suite of capital markets and advisory capabilities and treasury solutions, along with commercial lending, corporate credit cards, risk management products, payments services and specialized expertise across several industry verticals.

Read more about Citizens Financial here: https://www.americanbanker.com/organization/citizens-financial

During the second quarter, the commercial banking unit generated net income of $206 million, down 20% year over year. Citizens' commercial loan book was $71.6 billion at the end of June.

Swimmer joined Citizens in April 2010 to run the capital markets team, according to his LinkedIn profile. A former Wachovia executive, he has been part of Citizens' management team since 2018.

The bank did not immediately say if or how it will fill the head of capital markets job.