Chairman and CEO, CIT Group
Over the past two and a half years, Ellen Alemany has made several big changes at CIT Group, selling off international business lines and turning the focus to traditional middle-market lending.
But among her list of accomplishments, there’s one change that she is particularly proud of: appointing more women to the $49.9 billion-asset company’s senior ranks.
When Alemany took the helm, in April 2016, there were only two other women on CIT’s executive team. There are now five women on the 15-member panel, in roles such as chief technology and operations officer and chief credit officer. Additionally, women currently account for one-third of the New York company’s board.
“With a woman at the top of the house, you actually attract more women to the organization,” Alemany said.
Having more women in management has been “very empowering” for younger women at the company, she said.
Over the past year, Alemany has
Additionally, the company has made strides in increasing deposits, particularly from its digital bank, which added 20,000 customers and $1.5 billion in deposits during the second quarter of 2018 alone. Total deposits as of June 30, meanwhile, rose 1% from a year earlier, to $31.2 billion.
“We’re really proud of the progress we’ve made with that group,” Alemany said.
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As one of only two female CEOs of U.S. banks that are considered systemically important, Alemany
Alemany, who has spent four decades in banking, said the industry tackled sexual harassment head on in the 1990s, improving workplace policies following the
“I think that the industry, to give it credit, was terrific in terms of … sensitivity training, making sure you have proper codes of conduct, actually having public firings if someone has demonstrated inappropriate behavior,” she said.
