Most Powerful Women in Banking: No. 9, B of A's Anne Finucane

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Vice Chairman | Bank of America

Bank of America's reputation took an enormous hit from the financial crisis; it's been Anne Finucane's job to restore it.

"The starting point was to be brutally honest and self-reflective about our reality," Finucane said. "Candidly assessing and reassessing the situation was painful, but it was necessary."

As B of A's vice chairman, Finucane leads the company's environmental, social and governance effort. She also chairs the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.

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One of her key initiatives involves so-called green bonds, which are used to finance environmentally friendly projects. The Charlotte, N.C.-based company has issued a total of $2.1 billion in green bonds. It calculates that the 22 projects financed to date will result in 2,167 megawatt hours of clean energy from wind and solar projects.

Finucane said in a 2016 Wall Street Journal interview that B of A's initial efforts to improve its environmental record came in response to demands from groups like the Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club.

More recently, other factors have spurred B of A to make environmentally friendly investments, including the evolving expectations of its own employees.

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"You have a group of employees — millennials — who are a larger group than we baby boomers, and their expectations for their companies are quite demanding. And we want to keep those young people, and keep them in the company," Finucane said.

Finucane has been with B of A and predecessor FleetBoston Financial for 22 years. But recently her reputation management skills have been drawing notice beyond the banking industry. Earlier this year, Uber, which has been rocked by a sexual harassment scandal, reportedly considered making her its next CEO, though it ultimately chose someone else.

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This article originally appeared in American Banker.
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