New York's Financial Institutions cuts jobs, shakes up management

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Financial Institutions, parent company of the $6.1 billion-asset Five Star Bank in Warsaw, New York, is shaking up its senior management team and downsizing its workforce in moves intended to produce a leaner, more efficient, more responsive organization. 

"As we respond to an evolving and challenging operating environment that we expect to continue in 2024, we now can do so as a simpler, more streamlined and functional organization, where leaders across the enterprise are empowered to drive near-term success in pursuit of strong execution of long-term initiatives," President and CEO Martin Birmingham said in a press release last week. 

The C-suite restructuring involves wider roles for three recently arrived executives. Reid Whiting, who joined the company in September 2022 from Morgan Stanley, was named to the newly created role of chief banking officer. Whiting, who had been serving as senior vice president of indirect and fintech lending solutions, will now be responsible for consumer and mortgage lending, as well as all retail banking channels, to include digital banking, branches and the call center. Whiting retains responsibility for Financial Institutions' banking-as-a-service line of business. 

Chief Marketing Officer Blake Jones, who joined Financial Institutions from the $4.3 billion-asset Arrow Financial in Glens Falls, New York, in July, will add responsibility for enterprise sales to her brief. Jones is also joining the executive leadership team reporting directly to Birmingham. 

Gary Pacos, who joined Financial Institutions as chief risk officer in February, is assuming responsibility for all credit administration functions. Pacos served as chief compliance officer at the $32.8 billion-asset Bank OZK and at Buffalo-based First Niagara before joining Financial Institutions. 

Chief Financial Officer Jack Plants, who joined Financial Institutions in 2019 and was promoted to his current job in February 2021, as well as Chief Human Resources Officer Laurie Collins, who arrived in August 2021, also received expanded duties as part of the reorganization.

"These leadership changes leverage the strengths of our team of executives," Birmingham said in the press release. 

Financial Institutions also announced Chief Administrative Officer Sean Willett is leaving at the end of December to pursue a new opportunity as CEO at an out-of-market bank. The specific institution was not named. 

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Along with reshuffling its management team, Financial Institutions announced plans to reduce the size of its workforce by 3.4% — about 23 jobs. The downsizing is expected to result in a flatter organizational structure, "reducing layers of management that no longer align with the Company's long-term focus," according to the Dec. 8 press release. 

The cuts, which are expected to reduce annual noninterest expenses by $6 million, come mainly from the salary-and-benefits budget line. They prompted Nick Cucharale, who covers Financial Institutions for Hovde, to boost his earnings-per-share estimate for full-year 2024 by 34 cents to $3.35. "At this point we foresee flat year-over-year expense growth," Cucharale wrote Wednesday in a research note. Through the first nine months of 2023, Financial Institutions spent $54 million on salaries and expenses, up 5% year over year.

Financial Institutions joins a number of other companies that have announced job cuts in recent months, but most of those, including PNC Financial Services Group, TD Bank and Zions Bancorp, are among the nation's largest banks.