Just a few of Jennifer Smith's array of Zions Bancorp. duties include: control of cybersecurity, leading deposit and payment operations, heading commercial and consumer loan operations, and supervising the customer call center.
But Zions' chief technology and operations officer could take a moment for herself on July 14. That day marked the final implementation of a yearslong project to replace the Salt Lake City lender's core banking software.
Nine years into her current position, Smith has shepherded multiple tech investments at Zions, including a 400,000-square-foot corporate campus in Midvale, Utah, devoted to technology. But the core banking ecosystem transformation "provides the heartbeat for everything we do," she said.
Hear her speak at The Most Powerful Women in Banking Conference in New York City, October 22-23.
Zions bankers should benefit significantly from a more modern, less complex back end, Smith said, predicting, "they will have more information at their fingertips about their customer without having to dig into multiple different systems."
Smith anticipated delivery of products would move 20% faster, with employees no longer using software with "ductwork, taping and Band-Aids."
Next up, Smith said she is removing frictions to make Zions' commercial lending process faster and simpler.
Implementing the core system came amid change. In September, Zions named a new chief technology officer, a position separate from Smith's post, which followed the departure of the old CTO. Smith led the process of reducing positions across her entire technology and operations organization. In total, Zions — which also changed its CEO and other leadership roles in April — reported it laid off about 3%, or 300, of its employees.
Zions is figuring out how best to operate following the COVID-19 pandemic, persistently high interest rates and leery consumers after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, Smith said. Solutions, like embedding more machine learning, can cut both ways, improving efficiency but de-emphasizing workers who do manual tasks.
"It does require us to work through how we position the employees who were doing those tasks for the future," she said. Smith is focused on skill development and transparency for her team of more than 2,300 people, while recognizing change can be hard.
Smith earned bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the University of Utah. She began her banking career at Wells Fargo, joining Zions from there in 2006. Smith champions a need for more women leaders in banking and tech, but also a more specific issue — the lack of women business leaders in Utah.
Citing studies by the personal finance company WalletHub, Smith said that Utah trails states in gender equality. She has worked with organizations including the YWCA of Utah, where she recently served as a board member, and the Utah State University's Women and Leadership Project to address the subject.
The Women and Leadership Project found that gender norms such as women as nurturers and men as providers "have a stronger influence in Utah than maybe other parts of the country," Smith said. The banker works to disabuse Utah women of the idea "you have to work 80 hours a week if you are in an executive role."
"It is really about reframing what it means to be in a leadership role," Smith said.
