‘Don’t think you’re going to change people’: Huntington's Mary Navarro

Want a strong team? This is what Mary Navarro said she has learned about creating one in her 42-year banking career.

Navarro, who recently retired from Huntington, accepted a Lifetime Achievement award at our 2017 Most Powerful Women in Banking gala.

Steve Steinour, the chairman and chief executive at her Columbus, Ohio, company, took the stage to introduce Navarro, who shared a lot of business advice in her speech. Steinour noted that Navarro has been in our ranking of the Most Powerful Women in Banking for many years.

The event took place Thursday night at Cipriani Wall Street. Read more about it and see additional video clips here.

See the most recent rankings:
The Most Powerful Women in Banking
Women to Watch
The Most Powerful Women in Finance

NAVARRO: Focus on leveraging people’s strengths. Don’t think that you’re going to take on people’s weaknesses and try to fix them or change them. It’s much more productive as a leader to focus on their strengths. And when you’re building a team, it’s like putting together a puzzle. And when you’re trying to put together that puzzle, you want to find all the strengths of the team, put that together, and when that happens, you pretty much have magic. Because you have a team that’s very motivated. They learn to solve problems themselves using each other’s strengths, and they feel very valued as a member of the team and the company, and a part of something where they know they can make a difference.