Commercial Banking Strategy - Associate

Commercial Banking (CB) provides a full range of services including lending, treasury services, investment banking, commercial card and asset management products to meet its clients’ domestic and international financial needs. CB’s 1,800 bankers serve approximately 18,000 clients nationally, including corporations, municipalities, financial institutions and not-for-profit entities, with annual revenue generally ranging from $20 million to $2 billion, and nearly 36,000 real estate clients, owners and investors. CB is the third largest commercial bank in the U.S., with over $200 billion in loans and $180 billion in deposits. In 2017, CB generated revenue and earnings of $8.6 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively.

Team overview

CB Core Strategy team functions as an internal consulting and corporate development group partnering with senior management across CB to deliver on the most important business strategies. Projects are typically staffed by small, high performing teams of 2-4 individuals and include extensive collaboration with partners throughout the lines of business and functional areas. CB Core Strategy reports through the Head of CB Strategy, a CB Operating Committee member, leading Strategy as an independent functional area within CB.

Projects managed by CB Strategy include:

• Assessing new market opportunities from preliminary evaluation and sizing to go-to-market strategy
• Performing competitive and market sizing analyses, including profiling competitors’ offerings / strategies and identifying factors driving growth or change in industry structure
• Evaluating client segmentation and sales models
• Identifying opportunities to improve business efficiency and/or client experience
• Exploring FinTech landscape to identify and execute new partnership opportunities
• Identifying solutions for market needs and/or changes in the landscape
• Creating internal Operating Committee-level and external shareholder-level presentations for CB CEO

Role overview

CB is seeking talented candidates for an Associate position in either New York or Chicago. This highly visible position will be filled by a candidate with exceptional drive and energy, solid analytical and financial skills, as well as strong verbal and written communications skills.

The position represents an excellent opportunity for candidates to:

• Gain exposure to the senior management of CB
• Be exposed to and influence the agendas of the leadership team
• Develop expertise in a variety of functions and businesses across CB and our Product partners
• Hone problem solving and communication skills

Project responsibilities

• “Own” a complete workstream end-to-end within overall project, leading the thinking around problem-solving approach, framework to solve the issue
• Design, structure, and “own” quantitative and qualitative analyses
• Identify major issues and actionable opportunities, design solutions, and quantify potential bottom-line financial impact across workstream
• Synthesize impactful findings, develop recommendations, and write small documents with minor guidance / editing; present recommendations to senior management
• Delivers chapters of senior client presentations, with ability to recognize and address client motivations and concerns

• 2-4 years of relevant experience in consulting, investment banking, strategy development or other similar role; financial services background is preferred, but not mandatory 
• A track record demonstrating a high level of personal initiative, setting and achieving challenging goals, and demonstrating entrepreneurial leadership 
• Strong analytical capabilities coupled with the ability to identify issues, gather and manipulate data, obtain consensus and implement change 
• ell-developed organizational skills to manage multiple projects and priorities 
• Strong written and oral communications skills, including the ability to synthesize storyline and adjust messages and style based on different audiences and agendas 
• Ability to collaborate with team members across business and staff areas at all levels, and achieve goals without direct control over all resources