Vice Chair, Wealth Management and Investment Services
Gunjan Kedia faced one of the biggest challenges of her career in late 2020.
She saw that anxiety was high and morale was eroding for her team of more than 8,000 employees, as they were trying to manage clients who needed a lot of support while also juggling their own personal issues amid a pandemic that kept getting worse.
“We needed something beyond Zoom happy hours to reenergize ourselves,” said Kedia, the vice chair of wealth management and investment services at U.S. Bancorp.
So she decided to focus the team on projects that would be impactful, including deploying new digital tools and launching new products. Paper-heavy operational controls were reengineered for digital review, enabled in large part by e-signature technology. And a robo-advisor platform, as well as fintech solutions for cryptocurrency, foreign exchange and the administration of digital currency exchange-traded funds, took shape.
“It may sound counterintuitive to say that we focused on work, but my premise was that the last six months of postponements and cancellations had created space for people, but also weakened our sense of accomplishment and forward progress,” Kedia said.
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The result was a roster of satisfied clients and a stronger business. Kedia’s unit reported revenue of $2.87 billion last year, while assets under management increased 32%, to close the year at $239 billion. Overall, the unit contributed 14% of net income at the $560 billion-asset U.S. Bancorp.
Kedia joined the Minneapolis company in late 2016 after nearly eight years with State Street, where she was executive vice president of investment services. She co-sponsors internal efforts around women’s advancement and supports financial literacy efforts, with emphasis on improving how the financial services industry serves women, people of color and young investors.
