Boston-area banks have lured dozens of bankers and wealth managers over from First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank after both lenders, which had substantial local footprints, failed in March. iStock illustration

It’s been almost six months since Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank failed but Massachusetts banks are continuing to hire top-tier talent away from the two failed banks’ successors with the intent of bringing in more business to their books. 

Leader Bank, Berkshire Bank, Cambridge Trust and Citizens Bank collectively announced dozens of new recruits from SVB and First Republic this summer. Even after a series of hires in the first half of the year, the four aren’t the only local banks who say they are only getting started in hunting for more. 

Bankers interviewed for this story say they are zeroing in on getting additions to their front offices or client-facing workforces. In particular, they are recruiting positions for specialty banking, private banking and wealth management units, especially those with existing client contacts and experience with handling big ticket clients to drive deposits inflows to the bank. 

Competitors Rack Up Wins 

Getting relationship bankers adept at connecting with New England customers is a priority for local banks, as several mentioned in their second-quarter earnings calls, as they look to sweep up deposits from the market disruption in spring as well as from the “growing” and “vibrant” New England market. 

“We are already seeing some of the benefit roll in from [our new hires], and we think in the coming months, it will have a really nice benefit,” Denis Sheahan, Cambridge Trust’s chairman, president and CEO, said during the bank’s call. 

Rockland Trust CEO Jeffrey Tengel said the bank “continues to be opportunistic” and “aggressive” on hiring towards the second half of the year, noting that bankers from larger banks find working for them more attractive. 

“We find that we’re most successful getting people that are coming from some of the larger banks in the region that find the idea of working for Rockland Trust is a compelling position, because we have a lot of the same capabilities that the larger banks have, but we’re much more nimble and we’re able to react a lot quicker,” Tengel said, noting the Hanover-based bank had recently hired four bankers, albeit not from First Republic nor SVB. 

For its part, Providence-based Citizens Bank secured 50 First Republic hires for its wealth management division this summer, and said in its second-quarter call that business and yields from these new hires are expected to show results in 2024, before becoming “significantly profitable” in around two to three years’ time. 

And Boston’s Berkshire Bank has hired away three First Republic wealth managers and a former manager at SVB’s wealth-management arm. SVB Private managing director David J. Coughlin and First Republic relationship manager Michelle Samuel are now both senior vice presidents on Berkshire’s own wealth management team. 

JPMorgan Chase, the bank that bought out First Republic Bank, declined to comment as it continues to integrate the defunct bank, a process expected to be completed by mid-2024.  

That same integration process at both Chase and First Citizens Bank, which bought SVB, has helped make talent available for local banks to hire, and may have made some of the staffers who remain at SVB and First Republic uncertain about their own futures. Mergers and acquisitions of the two banks led to some job cuts as part of systems integration process, with JPMorgan laying off 15 percent of First Republic Bank workers, while 500 SVB staff were let go.  

During its earnings call, the JPMorgan executives said that many ex-First Republic employees joined the bank as of July 2 and the bank had a “very high acceptance rates on our offers.” 

Dan Curtin, the head of J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Boston and New England, said in an interview the wealth manager is always hiring top talent every year, mostly targeting client-facing advisors serving Boston-based customers. He said Boston is one of JPMorgan’s expansion markets. 

Cracking Open Opportunity 

The turmoil has also let local banks see opportunities to make cracks in SVB’s and First Republic’s domination of the Greater Boston tech sector by hiring away workers experienced in the unusual and highly relationship-driven field. 

Cambridge Trust’s Sheahan said he hoped that the bank would pick up more SVB talent experienced in the innovation banking segment, as Cambridge Trust sees C&I lending to innovation economy and renewable energy companies as a growth area for the bank. 

“We’re not done yet in terms of picking up talent. I’ve actually been disappointed in our inability to pick up talent on the innovation banking side, but we have been able to do more on the traditional relationship banking team,” Sheahan said in the bank’s earnings call. 

Cambridge Trust and Arlington-based Leader Bank are two of the only local banks with units dedicated to the Boston tech and biotech economy, an area that SVB and First Republic served heavily before each collapsed.  

Leader launched its own unit last week with the hiring of an eight-year First Republic veteran with a book of clients in the local tech sector and the private equity, venture capital and hedge fund companies that funded it. The hire, bank President Jay Tuli said, would build on the innovation economy depositors it gained in the spring as companies in the sector scrambled to diversify their own treasury strategies. 

Hires Bring Depositors 

Maria Harris, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Rockland Trust, said recruiting environment in banks remains “highly competitive” with top prospects are fielding multiple offers and counteroffers. 

“With the unemployment rates reflecting pre-COVID levels [late 2019], we remain in a candidate-driven market,” Harris said in an email. 

More than the money, candidates are prioritizing rewarding jobs at reliable and reputable companies that are focused on good culture and making employees feel that their work makes a difference, she said. 

Harris added that banks and recruiters must also provide flexible work arrangements if possible – whether hybrid or remote – and invest in collaboration technology “to enhance the work experience for our employees, no matter where they’re working from.” 

David Felton, vice president of Cambridge Trust’s relationship banking division, said in a July interview that the former First Republic banker and former SVB banker his team added will likely bring over their networks of deposit clients. Those two hires, plus relationship bankers from Maine’s Bangor Savings Bank and Boston-based Santander Bank that Cambridge Trust onboarded at the same time, had already ushered in new client relationships for the bank even just in their first few months. 

Nika Cataldo

“They have a loyal clientele that reaches out to them and they have networks. We’re not rushing a client to move in 30 days, we understand it can take three months. The goal is to make [the transition] as seamless and painless as possible. [Clients] have our email addresses, and in 99 percent of the cases, they have our cell phone numbers,” Felton said. 

Hiring relationship bankers is important to provide personalized services to clients, Felton said that a lack of communication can be a cause for clients in switching banks. 

He noted that Cambridge Trust recently gained a nonprofit deposit client that was not within its service area, but which opted for its service due to a lack of communication from the client’s former bank.  

“Their bank wasn’t picking up the phone to have a conversation,” Felton said. “[The client] had some challenges on their deposit and lending side and we came up with solutions for them.”  

Banker & Tradesman staff writer James Sanna contributed reporting.