Part two of a two-part series on women in banking.
When Irene Schmitt was named president of MetroWest Bank in Framingham in 1998, customers frequently stopped her on the sidewalk, wanting to meet the woman bank president.
“People stopped me on the streets,” Schmitt said. “I was such an oddity at the time it happened, even though it was two years ago.”
Two years later, Schmitt has more company. Only a week ago, she points out, the MetroWest Daily News ran a story on Pam Mozynski, the new president of Strata Bank in Medway. However, the ranks of women presidents and CEOs in Massachusetts are still thin.
“There are more women vice presidents and senior vice presidents than I’ve ever seen before,” Schmitt said. “There are still not a lot of executive vice presidents and CEOs.”
For Janice T. Houghton, president of StonehamBank, that means that many times she is the only woman in a meeting. The bank is active in construction lending, and when she visits construction sites she sometimes has to convince customers that she is indeed the president of the bank.
“It’s going to change,” Houghton said. “The younger men accept it.”
Janet Bruno became the first woman president and chief executive of a New Hampshire bank in 1987, when she went to work for United States Savings Bank of America in Seabrook.
“More women are in banking now,” Bruno said. “I also think that women are typically managers anyway because they typically are managing a home and budgets and children. It’s a normal progression as far as I’m concerned. There are great opportunities for women in community banking.”
‘Leaps and Bounds’
While few women have risen to the top of large commercial banks, at the community bank level it’s another story. At community banks women have risen by “leaps and bounds,” said Linda McArthur, president of Financial Women International. The organization will release a study on women at community banks later this summer.
Women community bankers surveyed by Banker & Tradesman reported two factors that helped them advance at their organizations. At smaller banks, they work more closely with customers and the bank’s directors. Their good work is recognized, while at larger institutions they could be lost in the shuffle with thousands of other employees. Small banks can be quicker to adapt to change, the women said, and can provide more family-friendly work environments than some larger companies.
All three women said that community banks provide a more flexible work environment and a more supportive atmosphere for workers with families.
“Community banks are quicker to answer to the needs of working women,” Schmitt said. “A lot of companies have flexible schedule policies, but they don’t all carry it out. It has to come from the top.”
At the 16-branch, $792 million-asset MetroWest Bank, Schmitt makes an effort to create a family-friendly corporate culture. By limiting the number of morning and evening functions she attends, Schmitt makes time for meals at home with her family. She takes time out from work to take her daughter to swim lessons and see her son’s soccer games.
Instead of thinking of the workday as a single block of time, Schmitt said she schedules her time to complete weekly and monthly projects. Her work often continues into the evening, when she reads work-related material at night after the children have gone to bed, instead of books from the bestseller list.
“It’s a good example to set for the other parents that work here,” Schmitt said. “Family comes first. You still have to get your job done. But I believe if you hire responsible people they will do their job.”
Some employees work on the road with lap top computers and cell phones, and MetroWest’s director of corporate cash management works in the office three days a week and from home the other two days. Flexible scheduling benefits male and female employees, Schmitt said. Several men at MetroWest Bank have the responsibility of picking up their children from day care and must leave the bank when their children are sick.
Although many corporations have adopted flexible scheduling policies in writing, they do not work in practice when company leaders continue to log 12-hour days, Schmitt said. If corporations do not adapt to meet the needs of working parents, they will lose star employees.
“Corporate America has to fill that gap by providing flexibility,” she said. “Community banks can react faster because we’re smaller. We’re leaders in the innovation.”
Schmitt came to the bank in 1989, and became the first woman director at the publicly traded state-chartered bank in 1997. She started her banking career in 1979.
“I really don’t have a chip about being a woman in this role,” Schmitt said. “I’ve never been held down. Maybe I’m that next generation.”
Paying Dues
Houghton had a harder time convincing her superiors she was qualified to do a man’s job 30 years ago. She started her career as a teller and advanced to be a branch manager.
“I remember when I first started there were no women branch managers,” Houghton said. “It’s 100 percent different now.”
When she was interviewed to be a branch manager, supervisors questioned if she could handle security at a bank branch.
“I asked them what would I do any different than a man if the bank is robbed?” Houghton said.
She became the first woman president of StonehamBank last year. The $260 million-asset state mutual has three branches. Houghton advanced by taking jobs in different departments of the bank, learning about finance and lending as she paid her dues.
Many people are surprised to find that a woman is president of the bank, especially when she visits construction sites for the bank’s construction loans.
“They’ll say ‘I want to talk to the president,’ and I say, ‘speaking,'” Houghton said.
Even though she has risen to the corner office at StonehamBank, Houghton said there is still a glass ceiling for women in banking. Women are often advanced to management jobs, but fewer are promoted to leadership positions at the senior level.
“I think the glass ceiling still exists,” Houghton said. “Women are accepted for managing, but to be viewed as leadership – that’s where I see it stopping.”
Bruno began her banking career in Colorado, where it was more common to see women in leadership positions in the 1980s. When she moved to New England, she was surprised at the lack of women in high places.
“On the East Coast it seemed to be more of the traditional male banker than it was in Colorado where I was,” Bruno said. “I didn’t see as many women involved in senior level positions when I came here.”
She made her name as a workout specialist in the 1980s, going into troubled banks and turning them around. She left that work behind when she joined Marlborough Co-operative seven years ago. During her time at the bank, it has grown from $52 million in assets to $71.5 million. The bank formed a mutual holding company last year, and expanded its branch network to three offices. In addition to leading the bank, Bruno chairs the board of selectman in Merrimac.
Although she has heard stories like these, Schmitt said her experience has been different.
“At seminars I hear horrible stories from women that are 10 or 15 years older,” she said. “It’s changing, because I didn’t experience that.”
