Professional development

Spence, who joined the Cincinnati bank in 2015, will succeed Greg Carmichael as chief executive in July. He says he’ll maintain the company’s current strategic priorities, including regional expansion and digital transformation.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is managing a shortage of tech workers by training its developers in high-demand technologies including blockchain and Microsoft Azure, betting that such growth opportunities will help the lender retain current workers and attract outside talent. 

Chryssa Halley, who has been with the company since 2006, was named CFO and Jim Holmberg was named controller.

Liz Wolverton, previously the Georgia bank’s chief strategy and customer experience officer, will oversee its branch network, consumer products, marketing and more.

The card network chose the majority-Black city as the site of its new operations center in part to improve the racial makeup of its workforce and create a new path to leadership for minorities.

From paying for lawn care when an Army Reservist on staff was deployed to offering employees office space and laptops for their children to do school work, United Bank in Alabama aims to make life easier for the people who work there. It is also ramping up internal training programs.

The California bank is directing $30 million to Stride Funding, a provider of flexible student-payment options, to finance deferred tuition for participants in a technology upskilling program.

The bank is giving virtual reality headsets to branch employees, which they'll use to practice conversations in private before they happen in real life.

Marquette University has formed a partnership that will give undergraduate business students experience working with grassroots lenders in Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua. The goal is not only to teach the basics of commercial lending, but also to instill some idealism in the next generation of bankers.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is soliciting feedback on banks' experiences with remote exams during the pandemic. Some welcome the review as a step toward a more modern examination system, while others contend the last year and a half exposed the drawbacks of long-distance oversight.