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Mooney, the well-regarded vice chair and head of community banking at the Cleveland company, would become the first woman CEO of a large U.S. banking firm
November 18 -
Bank of America's and Citigroup's succession messes have resembled reality shows this year, but many regional banking companies are ripe for minidramas, too, with chief executives poised to turn over en masse.
November 10 - WIB PH
Recessions have been surprisingly good to Beth Mooney, and she's doing all she can to make sure this one works out well, too. Mooney got into banking in the mid-1970s downturn, scoring the only job she could find out of college: as a secretary at a Texas bank.
October 1
Running a large bank is one of the most prized — albeit toughest — jobs in finance. When Beth Mooney was tapped to head KeyCorp on Thursday, she heard from a number of the lucky few who have had the privilege.
There was an e-mail from O.B. Grayson Hall, a former co-worker who took the reins of Regions Financial Corp. this year. Thomas Hoaglin, a former Huntington Bancshares Inc. chief executive, passed along his congratulations. So did John B. McCoy, a former head of Banc One Corp.
"I do think it's a big day-in-the-life-of" moment, Mooney said in an interview Friday. "I've heard from my first boss. I've heard from a lot of my bosses along the way. I've heard from other bank CEOs. I've heard from other women that are prominent in the industry."
Among those women: Pamela Joseph, the vice chairman of payments for U.S. Bancorp, another member of an elite circle of executives — not to mention female bankers —
The story of Mooney's ascension to the top of the $95 billion-asset KeyCorp highlights how the bench strength of the nation's banking industry is going to be put to the test in the coming years. Big-bank boards will increasingly look to relieve aging CEOs who oversaw the industry's collapse and recovery, given the strain of the last few years and deep challenges ahead. KeyCorp — for instance — asked departing CEO Henry Meyer 3rd, who turns 61 next month, to start thinking seriously about a successor more than a year ago.
"What the board said is, Henry, not today, but at some point, you're going to retire and we'd like to have internal candidates," Meyer said in a joint interview with Mooney. "I had Beth as a high-potential candidate."
Succession is one of the thorniest issues in managing any organization, but it may be particularly difficult in contemporary banking. There just aren't a lot of people like Mooney out there who have had much practice running a big bank. Her ascension sent ripples through the industry for that reason and because she is the first woman CEO of a large U.S.-based banking company. She said she got "hundreds" of e-mails hours after KeyCorp announced Thursday that she would succeed Meyer in May 2011.
The names of some of the people in her inbox in a lot of ways represent where the industry is going and where it has been.
Mooney, 55, is among the last generation of bankers groomed the old-fashioned way: when the decentralized nature of most banks before the megabank era gave up-and-comers chances to be mini-CEOs. That's how Hall, who worked with Mooney at AmSouth Bancorp., and Hoaglin came up.
As banks have gotten larger, giving regional executives broad leeway on lending and pricing decisions became less feasible.
No company illustrates that better than the now-vanished Banc One. It is no coincidence that both Hoaglin and Mooney honed their skills at Banc One, which before its takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. was famous for churning out CEOs and for letting its regional bankers do their own thing.
Hoaglin was Mooney's boss at Banc One in the mid-1990s. She did such a good job as his chief financial officer for the Ohio region that he picked her to run Akron and Dayton, important markets.
"Beth did not necessarily know how to do the assignment she was asked to perform," Hoaglin said. "She excelled all the time."
Hoaglin, and now Mooney, are just two of several Banc One alumni to become CEOs. Others include Roger Mann, the former head of Unizan Financial Corp.; Stanley N. Pontius, the former CEO of First Financial Bancorp.; and Mike Vea, the former CEO of Integra Bank Corp. Two of today's better-known CEOs — Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and FirstMerit CEO Paul Greig — passed through the company after it began moving away from its famous decentralized approach. Greig ran the company's Wisconsin operations after it merged with First Chicago NBD Corp. Dimon famously took over Bank One in 2000, turned it around and led its merger with JPMorgan Chase four years later.
Though Dimon didn't get his training at Bank One, he is a big fan of its approach to grooming new leaders. He regularly shuffles his people around to give them lots of autonomy and experience.
Hoaglin said it's no coincidence so many Banc One people went on to bigger and better things.
"You essentially got to run your own show," he said. "I have this feeling that we're going to wake up in five or ten years and some consultant is going to say that decentralization is the way to the promised land. These things go in cycles."
Mooney didn't set out to be a banker. She graduated from college in the mid-1970s with a history degree and a keen desire for a job in a tough economy. She found one at a Texas bank, which hired her as a secretary for her typing skills. She said she badgered her first boss to let her into the bank's credit training, and that he relented only after she refused to leave his office for three hours and promised to get her business degree. She went to night school and became a commercial real estate lender. She's been everything to a commercial loan officer to chief financial officer. "I've never had a map with a destination, but more aspired to be a leader," Mooney said.
