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Marianne Smith
President, Cape Ann Savings Bank
Age: 53
Industry experience: 30 years
Gloucester-native Marianne Smith was a college student when she first worked at Cape Ann Savings Bank as a teller. Her career took her to other institutions, including the Massachusetts Division of Banks – where she worked as an examiner – and then to other community banks. Smith returned to Cape Ann Savings Bank as treasurer in 2013, and on Aug. 1, she became the first female president in its 175-year history.
The $805 million-asset bank has two branches in Gloucester and one each in Manchester-by-the-Sea and Rockport. The bank is also building another Gloucester branch as part of the retail and residential development at Gloucester Crossing, where a new YMCA also just opened.
Q: What are your goals as president of the bank?
A: We have a longstanding tradition where we service our own blue collar, hard-working local community. We’re – some people might say – a little bit old-fashioned, which is good and bad. We’re solid, we’re reliable, we still see the same people that come in the bank every single day. My goal is, in addition to servicing those long-time customers of the bank, to also be able to engage the younger population, the younger demographic who are more technology savvy than some of our older customer base. We don’t want to lose sight of what we’re good at, but we want to improve on some of the areas where we may be a little bit slower than some of the other institutions.
Q: What are some ways the bank can reach younger customers?
A: Probably one of the good things that came out of the pandemic was that it really forced us to embrace technology and utilize technology to the fullest capacity. Most of our employees live in this community, so we didn’t have remote access. People couldn’t get their email from their phones. We took a good hard look at what technology was available to us, which technologies we could implement safely and really took some significant steps in the last 12 to 18 months and implemented some new products, new services that we had not had before. All of that, we feel, will make us more attractive to some of the younger people that live in town but may not work in town.
Q: What are some other opportunities that you see in the Cape Ann area?
A: We’ve seen an influx of people leaving the city and coming this way. The cost of real estate is very expensive on Cape Ann, which is a bit of a hurdle, primarily for our younger people. It’s more of those that might be a little bit older and are more settled in their lifestyle and can afford to come back or come into this community. We feel they present some opportunities for us – sort of a new demographic that we see now coming into town.
Q: What are some challenges the bank faces?
A: I think the continued uncertainty with what’s going to happen with the pandemic, that’s a consideration or a concern for everyone: whether we’ll have to shut down branch locations and have all employees go remote again.
We’re also going through a core system conversion, which really is challenging under the best of circumstances, never mind when there are other things going on in the background, such as the pandemic. The biggest challenge we face right now is really keeping our employees excited and motivated during this conversion and really feeling appreciated in the process. Because it’s quite a burden to them and to us to do any conversion, never mind under unusual circumstances.
Q: How might Cape Ann Savings as a community bank respond to the current market disruption in Greater Boston from merger activity?
A: Mutual banks provide a critical service for not only the smaller customer, but also the community as a whole. The larger an institution becomes, the more challenging it is to really service each individual community that they do business out of. So, along those lines, to avoid any change of organizational ownership, the corporators of Cape Ann Savings Bank several years ago changed the bylaws. In order for Cape Ann Savings Bank to change from a mutual to a stock back or even to form a holding company, it would take a supermajority vote of the corporators for that to happen. And no one who is in the management team at the time would be able to benefit financially from a change in the structure. It is the bank’s intention, the corporators’ intention and the trustees’ intention to remain a mutual bank to continue to be able to serve as it is and has for 175 years.
Q: You’re the first woman to be president of Cape Ann Savings Bank. What did that mean to you?
A: It’s very exciting. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a household where the expectations were the same for the males and the females. I’m one of eight children, and we were all expected to get jobs after school and participate in after-school activities, and obviously academics were critical. But I didn’t realize until I was a little bit older that not every single female had that same opportunity. I think my family’s core values are what propelled me along the way throughout my career. Not everybody – not all my peers, not all the people that lived around me – had that same benefit or that same guidance from their family and their friends.
Q: What are some ways to get more women into banking’s executive ranks?
A: Mentorship goes a long way. I belong to the [Massachusetts Bankers Association’s] Women in Banking advisory board. One of the things that we try and focus on is mentoring not only the young women but the young men to accept everybody as an equal and on the same playing field. And mentorship not only from women that might be at a higher rank, but also from men. The expectations are the same for everyone – male or female.
Smith’s Five Favorite Outdoor Activities
- Swimming in the ocean
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Biking
- Walking her dog
