At the time of this interview, Ellen Molle had been the vice president of public relations and marketing at Rockland Trust for all of three weeks. Her career path has been interesting, to say the least.
She began her working life in television news at WABU in Boston and spent seven years as a producer at ABC’s late-night news magazine Nightline. She has some killer stories about the glory days of network news. She’s not sharing them here.
Ellen Molle
Title: Vice President, Public Relations and Marketing, Rockland Trust; Rockland
Age: 51
Experience: In bank PR since 1997
Q: I understand you come to Rockland from a position at a much larger institution.
A: Yes, I was at Sovereign, which itself covered the entire northeast and had about 8,000 or 9,000 employees when I left. That was quite a bit larger than Rockland, and for the last three years, it’s been part of a very large, global organization, Santander, which has about 140,000 employees, I believe, globally.
Q: What kinds of things from the big bank experience do you think will help Rockland?
A: Well, I think it’s having to handle a variety of communications challenges and opportunities, both internal and external, especially in the last three years during the financial crisis, and then the experience at Sovereign prior to that when Sovereign made a number of acquisitions. I feel that I’ve handled as many situations as possible, although I’m sure that there are some that I have not. Who knows what the future will bring? Relationships are the key to getting anything done.
Q: What communications and PR challenges are particular to banking?
A: I think right now public opinion of banking is not at its best. That’s certainly different for community banks. I don’t think community banks suffer from that nearly as much or at all, but I do think that is an industry issue, and it’s going to take some time for them to work out. I think it’s a trust issue.
Q: I understand that in addition to being VP of public relations and marketing at Rockland, you are a student.
A: Yes. Last fall, I followed through on a long-term dream of mine, which is to go for my master’s degree. My mother has her Ph.D. in political science, so that does set an example for me, and I looked at a number of different programs. I felt that Harvard’s program – they do all these programs through their extension school – was really the best for its content, reputation and flexibility. I was terrified at the beginning of having homework.
Q: This is an MBA program?
A: Yes. It is a master’s of government program, which is in political science. I got through the first semester of mid-terms and finals, and now I’m finishing up my second semester right now. It’s just been wonderful. It really challenges your brain. You’re going from during the day handling business issues to during class talking about very large, theoretical concepts, such as liberty and equality and relating that back to current day issues occurring here, and especially during an election cycle, it’s kind of exciting.
Q: What are a couple of the key challenges you see for the banking industry in the next year to five years?
A: I think it’s earning the trust and respect back of the American people, and I also think it’s facing the increased regulation. We still don’t know what that’s going to look like. There’s a lot of questions about what exactly will be enacted. There’s still a lot from the Dodd-Frank bill that has not been put in place. It is important to note there are a lot of things that don’t impact community banks directly.
The Five Most Interesting People Ellen Molle Met While Working At Nightline:
- Ted Koppel
- David Brinkley
- Tom Cruise
- Richard Nixon
- Cokie Roberts
