Fidelity Bank Chief LifeDesign Officer Sherri Pitcher is focused on culture and customer engagement.
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Two years ago, Sherri Pitcher joined Leominster’s Fidelity Bank from the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. On Sept. 9, Pitcher was promoted to newly created role of chief LifeDesign officer.
Why did you join Fidelity Bank?
I met CEO Ed Manzi during my time working for the Worcester chamber, and part of that work involved making presentations on Worcester to the bank’s board of trustees, justifying their investment in Worcester. Ed was very interested in having me come onboard in a business development role, which was a position created based on my skill set.
One of the reasons they hired me was to expand our profile in Worcester, recognizing Worcester was a growth market for the bank. My role was using my existing contacts from my time at the chamber to grow the bank’s commercial side of the business.
How were those first two years?
I never saw myself becoming a banker. Never once. I played golf on my first day, at a charity tournament for Becker College in Worcester. I told everyone all the onboarding should be golfing.
My involvement with a lot of the different nonprofits in the city allowed me to maintain and expand my work in that community, which fell in line with Fidelity’s LifeDesign mission. If another bank had approached me with a similar position, I don’t think I would have been so ready to take it, but Fidelity’s mission was aligned with my beliefs.
We are so committed to this LifeDesign promise. It is how we want to do business. We want to grow the bank, but we want to do business the right way.
What is the LifeDesign mission?
It’s Fidelity's promise to our clients, our community and our coworkers. We like to treat people with care and respect, and to make ethical decisions. Fidelity has had this philosophy for 15 years.
How does that manifest itself?
My past job with the chamber had to do a lot with revitalizing downtown Worcester, so Fidelity’s LifeDesign promise aligns with those goals. With this branch on Front Street, we try to have different events meant to attract people to the neighborhood. We’ve had cocktail receptions for clients. We did a yoga class. Some events are banking related like cybersecurity and retirement planning. We want to contribute to the vitality of downtown, and we do that through fun events, like wine-and-cheese tastings. We have our Frosty Flyer, too, where we drive around and give away free ice cream.
LifeDesign is internal, too, where we have a newsletter where employees can give others what we call high fives, recognizing them for good work.
We really want to position ourselves as the caring bank.
What is your role then as chief LifeDesign officer?
My role is systematizing it across all our locations and ensuring we are delivering on it every single day.
Right now, I’m assessing where we are with different parts of the bank. We want to make sure clients’ experience at the bank is memorable, and we are doing better in some areas of the bank than others. A big part of my role is community outreach. I was just at a YWCA event this morning.
If we are going head-to-head with another bank on a commercial loan, we probably aren’t going to have the lowest rate, so our LifeDesign promise is what is going to make a difference for clients.
Does it help the bank stand out?
Fidelity is largely in north Worcester County, where we have branches all over; but we have two branches in Worcester, another in Millbury and we just announced a merger with a Fitchburg bank with branches in Stow and Needham. That really is going to expand our footprint further east, and part of my job now is integrating them into our LifeDesign promise.
If you ask anyone in Worcester, they probably wouldn’t confuse us with Fidelity Investments, but if you go into those eastern markets, you will have that confusion. Since we are moving into those regions, we want to make sure we stand out, and that starts with LifeDesign.
How is the growth in Worcester?
Our Front Street branch in Worcester just turned one year old, and we have $50 million in account balances here. Our Shrewsbury Street branch has $110 million in deposits. Fidelity has nearly $1 billion in total deposits, so Worcester does make up a significant percentage.
This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Editor Brad Kane.
