Roxann Cooke
Title: Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Eastern Bank
Age: 42
Experience: 21 years
When she enrolled at Dartmouth University, Roxann Cooke had no idea she’d wind up in banking. During a (required) semester off, she walked into a community bank looking for a job, and the manager was so impressed with Cooke’s honesty and ambition, she took a chance on her. But when Cooke returned to her studies, she realized she didn’t want to be a doctor after all. She wanted to be a banker. Now a senior vice president and regional manager at Eastern Bank, Cooke devotes much of her time to nurturing the next generation.
Q: When it comes to your own involvement in your community, are there any particular causes that are near and dear to your heart?
A: Youth and youth empowerment. Those are extremely important to me. I’m on the board of the Dorchester YMCA. I was on the board of the one in Lynn. I’m on the board of Girls Inc. in Lynn. I’m also on the board of an organization called Delta Theta Sigma sorority, and we have various programs that are focused and targeted for youth.
There’s a group of young girls, ages 11 to 18, and we meet with them one Saturday a month and just have conversations relevant to their age groups … so I do have mentoring relationships with them. Mentoring isn’t just this formal process. It’s also, you’re having a challenge, let’s talk through it. I have been mentored formally and informally, and I do the same.
Q: Was there ever a specific moment that made you say to yourself, “This is why I do this?”
A: Maybe three months ago, I did a speaking engagement at a school in Dorchester for the fifth graders. The organizer said to me, “I just want to forewarn you, these are students who are not engaged; the principal has to sit in the room to make sure they behave.”
So I went in and started to tell my story. I brought a photograph of myself, from when I was 10, and it was not the most pleasing photograph, and I passed it around the room and just asked them open-ended questions. I told them I was bullied. I came from Jamaica, and I was bullied because of my accent. I explained my background in Grove Hall, and they were so engaged, the principal left the room. She didn’t need to be there anymore. They were asking such great questions like, who was my mentor? Who inspired you?
One young girl wrote me a letter, and in the letter, she spoke about the bullying and the things she was going through at home and how she just didn’t care, and she said, “When you told your story, I realized that I can make it. I can make it because I see what you’re doing now and I see what you’re doing for your daughter, and I’m going to try a little harder in school.”
I cried. There were about 40 of them, and I received 40 letters. I sat there one night and my daughters were there with me and we were reading all the letters. There was commonality in those letters; they were telling me about themselves or some of the challenges they went through, but every letter ended with, “You made it, and so can I.”
For me, that’s when I realized I’m making a difference in my community. Eastern’s helping me to do that, because they encourage us to go out and do that.
Q: Having come from a background in the branch; does that give you credibility with the people you manage now?
A: Most definitely. You can’t preach what you haven’t practiced. It’s the same thing with those fifth graders – and I’m not equating my branch managers with fifth graders – but it’s the same principle. If there’s a challenge, I can say, “I remember going through that challenge, so here’s what I did.” Or if there’s a policy situation we have to talk through, then I’ve done that. I’ve been there and I’ve done that.
They’ve watched as I grew and my units I was overseeing excelled, so there’s the credibility there itself. I can’t say to them, get involved in the community, if I haven’t done that. And I see that in the leadership here. They don’t preach what they don’t practice.
I’ll be in the branches, too, even though I’m at the regional level. I thrive on interactions. I can’t just sit in my office and dictate. I plan to be out in their offices, I plan to connect with the customers, I plan to attend these various events with them, because I want them to understand the level of support that’s there for them.n
Roxann Cooke’s Top Five Ways To Relax:
- Journaling
- Listening to music
- Reading
- Exercising
- Time in a sauna
