Change in Leadership at Citizens Bank

State Street Corp. has, interestingly, opted to step away from the civil finance group for its last two Chief Financial Officer hires.

Now, you might wonder if Citizens Bank is drawing talent from State Street for its own CFO position. Well, sort of. Recently, Citizens announced that Aunoy Banerjee, the CFO of Barclays Bank, will take the helm as their new CFO. Banerjee has been with Barclays for about a year but has a rich history with State Street, where he served in various capacities for over eight years, notably as both an investment manager and a third-party manager. His career began at General Electric in their Financial Management Leadership Program.

Banerjee is set to join Citizens in October and will be working out of their Westwood office, where he commutes from just outside Boston. He’s replacing John Woods, who will assume the role of CFO at State Street. Woods previously took over for Eric Aboaf, who had joined State Street from Citizens back in 2016 and recently resigned to join S&P Global.

These changes hint at the competitive landscape of New England’s banking scene, with State Street and Citizens being the two largest remaining public banks in the region. Although State Street is the larger institution, Citizens operates as a general-purpose commercial and consumer bank, primarily focusing on services for institutional clients.

Citizens CEO Bruce Van Saun commented that Banerjee is an excellent fit for the bank, citing his extensive experience in financial services and his role in managing industry changes. His arrival coincides with what Van Saun refers to as the “Bank Rethink” initiative, which aims to revamp essential banking services through the use of artificial intelligence.

This announcement follows a short video interview with Banerjee that Barclays shared on LinkedIn just weeks prior.

In that interview, he spoke about his passion for teamwork, reflecting, “Always fast, strongest, not the most talented team, but the team that always wins is a team that believes that it can do that.” The sentiment was about Barclays at the time, but soon he’ll have the chance to foster a similar spirit at Citizens.