It's a man's world? Don't tell Donna Coughey!

RMA Journal, The, May, 2003 by Beverly J. Foster

"Influencing the Face of Banking: An Executive Women's Forum," presented by RMA and Financial Women International, takes place May 18-20 in New Orleans. Donna Coughey will be part of a plenary panel discussing the issues and challenges facing women executives. The story that follows is testament to her credentials.

In 2000, there were about 3.9 million secretaries and 499,000 bank tellers in the U.S. Many have believed it's almost impossible to advance from such positions, but there are those who know otherwise, having "been there, done that." Donna Coughey, president and CEO of Chester Valley Bancorp Inc., has taken giant steps in an industry hitherto thought to be dominated by men. She's also part of the Philadelphia Business Journal's list of 50 Women of Distinction and a Chamber of Commerce Woman of the Year.

Donna Coughey grew up in the 1960s. While there was a lot of noise in the late 1960s about women moving ahead, we know there was a lot more noise than action. (1) Things have changed for the better for women. Even today, however, it's tough to top the story of Donna's career, and the kicker is that she makes it sound like it was all in a day's work.

Mellon Bank hired Donna right out of high school in 1968 as a secretary in deposit accounting at the bank's operations center in Pittsburgh. Those were the days...to feel no nostalgia for. "I used to type account statements--and this is even before word processors, which means carbon paper and the agony of corrections whenever a typo occurred," says Donna. "Mandatory overtime was the rule, with a bunch of us typing and another group stuffing."

After marrying a couple years later, Donna moved to the suburbs and continued working for Mellon as a bank teller. With the arrival of the couple's first child in 1972, Donna did what most women did at the time--she quit to become a stay-at-home mom. A second child was born in 1974. But things changed fairly suddenly when she and her husband separated a year later. "With two children to raise on my own, I took another job as a teller," she says. At the same time, she entered night school in a business management program that would take seven and a half years to complete.

By the time Donna earned her bachelor's degree in 1983, she also had worked her way up through the management levels in the local branches. She then moved into human resources, seemingly a sidestep in a banking career. But she was gaining experience that a few years later would lead to an offer she couldn't refuse. During that time, she remarried. Accompanying her new husband in a job move to Philadelphia, Donna continued as an HR generalist in the new Mellon/Girard Bank merger. She'd been a secretary, a bank teller, and part of an HR staff, and she was ready for the next opportunity, whatever it might be.

"In 1985, I was accepted into Mellon's formal credit program, which at the time ran 18 months to two years," she recalls. While she was working toward a position as a middle-market lender, she reentered the night-school fray at Villanova University to capture an MBA. Having completed the credit program, Donna became a middle-market team leader for the counties surrounding Philadelphia. Then came a telephone call in the mid-1990s.

"Mellon knew that I now had a combination of retail, HR, and lending experience, as well as a touch of operations experience," Donna says. "Someone I'd worked with called me one evening, asking if I wanted to be chairman and CEO of Mellon Bank (Delaware). They wanted the bank to focus on a commercial lending strategy and felt I had the best qualifications to lead it."

Asked if she wasn't just a tad nervous about this new responsibility, Donna sounds surprised. "No, not at all," she says, "although I did get a little tense when my boss, the head of retail banking, who was t bring me up to speed during my two-week transition period, became ill." On her own and not knowing some of the nuances of the deposit world, Donna experienced a moment of terror in which she thought she'd lost a third of the deposits. "Welcome to the cycle of retail again," Donna says. "There's lots of money in the accounts at pay day, then a few days later everyone writes checks and the balance plummets. After years in commercial lending, I just hadn't thought about that."

The Delaware market was called provincial, but Donna found it to be a wonderful place to live and work. "To become more involved in the community, I joined one organization after another," she says. At one time, she was a member of 12 boards of directors. "This was a seven-day-a-week job," she recalls. "A good deal of work was done very early in the morning, late at night, or on weekends." But at this point her children were grown and on their own.

"I found it exciting and challenging," she says. "I've never been afraid to turn away completely from what I was doing to move into something brand new. I figured the worst that could happen is that I'd have to ask for help."

After Donna had 27 years with Mellon, the bank made a strategic decision to move away from retail and commercial lending and to focus more on wealthy clients. "Mellon was no longer investing in the areas of the business that I had grown most experienced in and comfortable with," she says. Coincidentally, Donna's bank was working with a consultant who knew her from two boards they both served on. He called to set up a meeting.