Kathleen Regan sees consistency within change

RMA Journal, The, Nov, 2003 by Carol McGinn

Consistency is a strong theme in the banking in the banking career of Wachovia's Kathleen Regan. She joined the bank about 16 years ago, right out of college, entering what was then First Fidelity's management training program geared toward credit. For the past nine years, she has been a relationship manager in Wachovia's commercial division, handling accounts with $15 million to $500 million in annual revenues.

"It's definitely been about consistency for me," she says. "I can't even say I'm a long-standing employee at this bank, as there are people here who have been with the bank for 20, 25 years!"

Given Wachovia's mergers and acquisitions over the past several years, you might not think "consistency" is exactly a word Regan would use to describe her years in banking. However, that's not the case. "The toughest thing about the most recent merger was just getting customers to pronounce Wachovia correctly," she laughs.

"Our customers' biggest concern was that they would not deal with the same relationship manager, and once we assured them that our roles would not change, there were no problems," she adds.

Change is always there in banking, but Regan says the old adage of "as much as things change, they stay the same" applies as well. "It's true that banking is an always changing industry in that products are more sophisticated, our customers are more educated, and so forth, but it's still a very people-oriented business. I still deal with many family-owned businesses, and I've seen them grow from one generation to the next. The focus on the customer is crucial, and that never changes," she said.

Regan's RMA career has been as long as her banking tenure, so you could say that consistency is a theme that runs there as well. Regan attended her first general membership meeting soon after she joined Wachovia, has been a board member of the Northern New Jersey Chapter for the past four years, served as chapter president last year, and is currently serving as membership chair.

Did Regan encounter any challenges as a woman president? "I am used to most challenges I might face as a woman. I guess I can thank my parents for giving me such good training in this field." Regan grew up as the only girl surrounded by five brothers! "I've never really thought in terms of additional challenges because I'm a woman. There were some challenges I faced as incoming president, such as increasing the population of younger bankers in the chapter as well as finding topics that would attract more bankers, especially women bankers, to our general membership meetings. On top of that, the chapter had been losing money, and I needed to pot a plan in place to push us back in the black."

Regan recognized these issues and put plans in action to face them. For instance, Regan and current Chapter President Jill Schwartz started a Young Professionals affinity group last year as well as a women's networking group. "Affinity groups have worked well fur us, and our results confirm that. Membership increased by 15%, each of our four general membership meetings was attended by more than 100 professionals, and we recruited additional women bankers to sit on our board. In fact, currently our board is almost equally represented by men and women. I am also proud that we were successful in tripling our treasury by running seven successful educational classes as well as procuring sponsors for our general membership meetings."

Community service is important to Regan. In addition to her service with RMA, Regan also serves on two not-for-profit boards--DARE New Jersey and St. Vincent's Academy, an all-girls school located in Newark. "I'm lucky because I have the full support of my bank. Wachovia actually allows four hours per month of paid time away from the bank to support these community initiatives," she says.

[c] 2003 by RMA. McGinn is a Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania-based freelance writer and desktop publisher specializing in financial and business topics.