Truist named Scott Stengel as senior vice president and chief legal officer, succeeding Ellen Fitzsimmons, who plans to retire at the end of this year, the company announced Wednesday.
Stengel, who will join the company on Dec. 26, will operate from the Truist corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, and report to CEO Bill Rogers. He will serve as corporate secretary to the Truist board of directors and oversee the bank's legal and government relations.
Stengel has served as general counsel of Ally Financial since 2016, overseeing legal affairs and government relations. Before joining Ally, he was the general counsel at UMB Financial Corp. and a partner at King & Spalding and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in the Washington D.C. metro region — focusing on global banking, capital markets and government relations, according to the press release.
"We're pleased to welcome Scott Stengel to Truist to guide our legal affairs and government relations strategy at a critical time of rapid change in the industry," Rogers said in a statement. "Scott is an entrepreneurial leader with deep financial services legal experience…[who] possesses the right growth-oriented mindset to navigate industry headwinds while helping fulfill our purpose of inspiring and building better lives and communities.”
Fitzsimmons also serves as the head of public affairs at Truist, according to her LinkedIn profile. Truist did not mention who would head the public affairs department after retirement.
She spent 26 years at CSX, a freight transportation company, as executive vice president of law and public affairs, general counsel, and corporate secretary. She announced her retirement internally in October, according to American Banker.
“In her six years at Truist, Ellen Fitzsimmons' exceptional, purpose-driven actions and leadership have left a positive, indelible mark on Truist, our clients, teammates, communities and stakeholders,” Rogers said. “We wish her the very best in her well-deserved retirement and congratulate her on a storied career.”
This is not the first time the $543 billion-asset bank has poached an executive from a big bank. About a month ago, Truist lured Kristin Lesher, a Wells Fargo executive, to become its chief wholesale banking officer. The lender also created a chief operating officer role and appointed Truist’s vice chair, Beau Cummins as the COO immediately during the same time.
The recent appointments are part of an overhaul that Rogers mentioned at the Barclay Global Financial Services Conference in September. Truist estimated that nearly one-third of the $750 million it plans to save over the next 18 months would come from a restructuring process that would include consolidated business lines, fewer layers of management and a reduced branch footprint.
Meanwhile, Ally has recently lost a handful of top executives. In October, Ally's longtime CEO, Jeffrey Brown, announced he is leaving the bank in January to lead Hendrick Automotive Group, a used car company in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Diane Morais, president of consumer and commercial banking at the Detroit-based lender, said she will step down from her role in July. Morais, who had been with Ally since 2008, was seen as a potential successor to Brown.
Ally began cutting its workforce in October to manage staffing expenses, which could reduce the headcount by less than 5%, a spokesperson for the bank told Bloomberg.
"After taking steps over the past year to pause hiring and manage staffing expenses through natural attrition, we have made the difficult choice to selectively reduce our workforce," Ally spokesperson Peter Gilchrist told Bloomberg in an email at the time. "We remain confident in our long-term strategy, with a strong balance sheet and nimble, scalable businesses that are poised for future growth."
