CEO says PNC Bank, Delaware, is poised for the future

3:35 p.m., Oct. 6, 2003--“PNC is now positioned with the right plans, the right businesses and the right people to compete,” Connie Bond Stuart, president and CEO of PNC Bank, Delaware, told those attending the fall 2003 Chaplin Tyler Executive Leadership Series of UD’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.

Connie Bond Stuart, president and CEO of PNC Bank, Delaware

Stuart, who has worked for PNC in various capacities for 23 years, assumed leadership of the second-largest, full-service bank in Delaware, in July 2002. She said, in her years with the bank, she has seen a great deal of change.

PNC began as a group of independent banks and functioned that way until the 1980s, when changes in federal banking laws opened up the banking business to income asset management and paved the way for PNC Financial Services Group, one of the nation’s largest diversified financial services organizations, Stuart said.

Since then, she said, PNC has been able to expand its deposit- driven business, grow its asset management and processing functions, leverage core operating platforms with strong technology, build a customer-focused base and develop best-in-class corporate governance, financial discipline and risk management.

PNC has a “stiff commitment” to high-level customer service and the right bank businesses, she said.

The regional community banks have 700 branches in six states and the eighth largest ATM system in the nation.

PNC is one of the top five banks in business credit, its treasury management is the ninth largest in the nation, and it had $51 billion in assets, as of June 2003.

A commitment to high-end technology, knowledge and teamwork make PNC different, she said.

It was a difference the company wanted to preserve when PNC took over Bank of Delaware, she said, and she eventually became its president and CEO.

“We want our customers to stay with us throughout their lifetimes,” Stuart said. “It’s important that we win the hearts and minds of our communities.”

As part of a community outreach effort, the newly reconstituted bank created the Grow Up Great program making a commitment to PNC’s communities to help prepare children for school and life with a goal of reaching 2.8 million children. In addition, the bank works with Habitat for Humanity and mentors students.

Stuart said everything begins and ends with people from the way the bank interacts with customers to working with each other.

During the question and answer session, she was asked how PNC stays competitive.

“Our focus on the customer gives us the advantage,” she said. “When I meet with a customer, I say, ‘Call me if there’s a problem.’”

“My job is backup. If I don’t know there is a problem, I can’t fix it,” she said.

Article by Barbara Garrison
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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