As a New Haven, Conn.-area native, David V. Ring doesn’t claim to have landed his new job at First Niagara Financial Group solely on the basis of his hometown – but it didn’t hurt, either.
“That was the icing on the cake,” said Frank Polino, executive vice president for the Buffalo-based institution, which recently announced Ring’s appointment as New England regional president, which includes assuming control of 13 Massachusetts branches of recently acquired NewAlliance Bank.
Ring was most recently senior vice president with Wells Fargo, where he oversaw Connecticut and upstate New York, and he worked for more than a decade at Bridgeport, Conn.-based People’s United Bank prior to that.
Ring’s banking background made him a solid pick, Polino said, adding that his commercial lending experience in particular was a major asset as the bank settles into new territory in Connecticut and central Massachusetts. Ring’s New England roots are an added bonus.
Indeed, local credibility is important to the bank’s customers after its planned takeover of New Haven-based NewAlliance. Many southern Connecticut leaders and community members are angered and worried about the loss of NewAlliance, their major local lender, to an outsider. Their protests prompted Connecticut’s banking commissioner to make the rare move of staging public hearings on the matter.
Close Ties
But Ring is confident that angst will be short-lived once First Niagara settles in and has a chance to prove itself.
“I could completely understand why this kind of change would impact the community,” Ring told Banker & tradesman. “But I believe First Niagara’s track record of being very focused on the communities, empowering local employees to make big decisions locally, is really just something that will be appreciated by this market in a very short time.”
Ring reiterated what First Niagara’s executives have said previously – that, despite worries to the contrary, the bank keeps local executives in charge of their own markets, instead of having decisions passed off to Buffalo-based management.
Of course, Ring himself is new to the company. But in his former position at Wachovia, he oversaw an extensive territory that stretched from Boston to Virginia, and he competed head-to-head with First Niagara on their Pennsylvania and New York turf.
It’s a tough bank to go up against, he said, and that’s a good thing: “That’s the kind of bank I think any banker would want to join.”
Ring is from Bethany, Conn., a town to the north of New Haven, and told Banker & Tradesman that he has extensive family roots in the area. He worked at People’s United Bank from 1982 to 1992 in management positions, and still has “close ties” to people there and at other major regional lenders, including Webster Bank. Both People’s United and Webster Bank –based in Bridgeport and Waterbury, Conn., respectively – have made a strong push in recent months into the eastern Massachusetts market.
In addition to his role as head of the bank’s New England operations, Ring will serve as First Niagara’s enterprise banking leader and co-chair its senior loan committee, with responsibility for managing and directing all commercial business lending activities. Commercial lending is going to be a key area of focus for First Niagara in New England, Polino said, and Ring’s experience in that area was vital in his selection.
Once First Niagara establishes its foothold in the region, Polino said, the bank will look for opportunities to fill in its Connecticut locations and possibly expand its holdings in Massachusetts, where it currently has a handful of branches in the Springfield area.
