Elizabeth Magennis' first job at a bank was short-lived. She had graduated high school six months early, "and I need to do something with myself," she said.
She applied to be a teller at a savings bank in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. She only lasted three months as a teller because the neighborhood was pretty rough back then, and she wasn't a good teller, she said. "Back then, you had to 'prove' your drawer all the time. And for some reason, I was always over and didn't know how I ended up shorting the clients," Magennis said.
Thankfully, that experience didn't put Magennis off banking. A friend of hers was working at BNY Mellon/Irving Trust Company and told Magennis that she should apply for a job as an assistant for one of its bankers. "He was in charge of the entire branch. There was a business banking unit, and retail unit, and he had lending authority. And he gave me a lot of opportunities to be curious and raise my hand and do all kinds of things there. And I really thrived," she recalled.
She entered the bank's training program, and went to college part-time; her tuition was paid for by the bank as long as she achieved and maintained a certain GPA.
In 1991, after four years at Irving Trust, a former boss recruited Magennis to apply for an assistant branch manager position at Commercial Bank of New York. "I interviewed for the role and got the job at the ripe old age of 21," she said.
Magennis stayed at Commercial Bank for the next seven years, and at 25, was the youngest vice president in the organization. "I was on a first name basis with the CEO and I learned a lot about the lending function and about business in general," she recalled.
She was living in New Jersey at the time, and wanted to start a family and didn't want to deal with a long commute, so she reluctantly left Commercial Bank to be a stay-at-home mom. That didn't last long. "I found out I really didn't want to stay home full-time," she said.
Magennis next started working part-time for Sovereign Bank and ended up working in its Small Business Administration program. "I remember getting this thick binder, and they said, 'Here, go home and read this.' There are a lot of nuances to the SBA program, and I loved it because it was a challenge to learn a different type of lending," she said.
She'd been at Sovereign for three years when she and her two coworkers were told that the SBA group was being centralized to a branch in Princeton, New Jersey. Since her daughters were young and she didn't want a long commute, she and her coworkers interviewed for a job at Bergen Commercial Bank.
Magennis was hoping the bank would take on the entire team, but after she interviewed with then-president Mark Campbell, he called her and said he wanted to bring only her on. "He told me, 'We think you could help us also on the commercial side, not only do strictly SBA,'" she said.
Magennis didn't immediately accept the job offer. "I want to talk to my group — my friends — and they told me to absolutely take the job."
A year and a half into her stint at Bergen Commercial, Campbell announced that he was retiring.
At the time, the bank had a loan participation with North Jersey Community Bank and Magennis became friendly with the chief lending officer, who eventually approached her about working for them. She was happy where she was but reluctantly agreed to speak with the bank's founder and chairman, Frank Sorrentino. "I loved his story and his dedication to the client experience. We never talked about profit. We never talked about numbers. All he wanted to know was whether or not I would be committed to serving our clients in the same way he thought was best," she said.
She joined NJ Community Bank in 2006 as a lender. One year later, the chief lending officer was promoted to president, and Magennis was promoted to chief lending officer. She would remain in that role for the next 13 years.
In 2013, the bank rebranded itself as ConnectOneBank because Sorrentino wanted to extend the bank's reach beyond New Jersey. And in 2020, Magennis was promoted to president of the bank. She is responsible for the bank's entire operations, including its sales team. Today, ConnectOne has 500 employees and has 14 branches in New Jersey, eight in New York and one in West Palm Beach, Florida, and just under $10 billion of assets.
Leadership lessons
One of the most important characteristics of Magennis' leadership style is self awareness. "Sometimes I don't realize how strong my voice can be, and I need to be careful about what I say and how I say something, especially to people that I don't interact with every day," she said.
She also values authenticity, and said her boss "makes fun of me and says I'm not a good poker player" because she doesn't mask her emotions. "I'd rather be that way. I want people to know I am genuine. I want people to know I am here for them. My door is always open and they can have those uncomfortable conversations [with me] that they maybe can't have with someone else."
Life lessons
Magennis' parents immigrated to the U.S. from the former Yugoslavia when she was just 2 years old. "My father had a trade —he was a tile guy, but he couldn't find work because it was the summer of 1971 in New York City and it was a tough time," she recalled. Her father found work as a janitor at a commercial bakery, and her mother, who only had a sixth grade education, stayed home to raise Magennis and her younger sister and brother.
She credits her parents for her success today and the values they instilled in her as a child. "Always prove yourself. If you work hard and go to school, you'll have opportunities. And I did absolutely buy into that. I think I've passed it on to my children as well. And I thank my parents for it. It was not an easy life growing up, but it's taught me invaluable lessons throughout my entire life. Throughout my career and even my personal life," she said.
The next generation
Magennis, who started her career during a time when women wore "a suit, panty hose and close-toed shoes" to work every day, said she's encouraged by the number of women working in banking today.
And as a senior executive, she said it's the responsibility of leadership to push the women in their organizations to take chances and encourage them to challenge themselves. "When I got promoted, I was a nervous wreck and I said, "Are you sure that you want to promote me to president?" And Frank [Sorrentino] said, "Of course, you're the best person for this job."
And to attract the younger generation into banking, Magennis said senior executives need to figure out who to get them motivated and interested in joining. "How do we make it fun? How do we offer work-life balance because that's what a lot of people want now. They don't want to work 80 hours a week like we did," she said.
Despite the long hours and the sacrifices she's made along the way, Magennis wouldn't trade her career for anything. "I love being a banker, she added. "And I love building the next generation of bankers."
