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n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 9 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 7 Continued on page 44 investment in commercial banking resources.' You're part of that investment. What are the other principal parts? Well, people. Right now I have five [commercial] bankers in the market; if I execute on this plan as intended, we'll have nine before the end of the year. And potentially more next year — to be determined. at was one of the things that at- tracted me to coming out here - was knowing that this was going to be a growth area. Your parent, KeyCorp., is one of the largest banking companies in the United States — but I'm not sure if everyone walking across the New Haven Green right now is aware of that. What is your impression of Key- Bank's public profile in the market? KeyBank has been here in New Haven for three years now since the acquisition of First Niagara Bank. One of the biggest brand- builders in local banking is your branch network, and we have a pretty robust branch network. So I think the brand is pretty strong. It's probably strongest in retail. In commercial and private banking, we need to catch up with retail in terms of the strength of the brand. We're working on that. Among retail, commercial and private banking, what are the most urgent developmental areas for you in Con- necticut and Massachusetts? It's all of that. It all moves togeth- er. As market president, my scope includes the whole business. e commercial bankers report directly to me, so I am specifically respon- sible for that. But at the same time we're investing in business banking, we're investing in private banking — and some of the things we have going on in retail [banking] are really cool. So we're really growing in all lines of business. What got you interested in banking in the first place? You were a science geek in college. My career path has been non-tra- ditional — as a physics major in college, as a submariner in the Navy working with reactors. en, when I got out of the Navy, a lot of submariners, nuclear engineers in the Navy le the Navy and worked running commercial power plants. But I [decided] to go to business school to open up opportunities beyond operations in the nuclear power industry. So I spent two years at Cornell, and aer two years got my MBA and got hired by a bank — M&T Bank in Buffalo. Among potential commercial bank- ing customers, what differentiates KeyBank from its competition? We have a very strong local pres- ence with outstanding bankers who are utilizing capabilities that are unique in this market. We have a full-fledged corporate banking/in- vestment banking/capital markets group, and our commercial bank- ers are the distribution network for those capabilities. Our local bankers leverage those resources to provide capital markets and syndicated banking services that a lot of our local competitors can't do. Or, our competitors are so large that they have those capabilities, but they're not focused on the middle market like we are. So our sweet spot is the middle market. We're not going aer the $10-$20 billion publicly traded companies to lead those deals. Some of our competitors — [Bank of America] and Wells [Fargo], are well suited to those [large corporate clients]. Another example is that KeyBank has made some very effective minority in- vestments in [financial technology] firms that bring capabilities to our commercial banking customers, primarily on the payment side, that our competitors can't match.ings that drive their efficiencies and make them more competitive. " We h a v e a v e r y a g g r e s s i v e g r o w t h c u l t u r e . " James R. Barger President & Sales Leader, KeyBank

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