After 37 years in the banking industry, Diane Morais, the former president of consumer and commercial banking at Ally, retired in July.
One year earlier, Morais had a conversation with then-CEO Jeffrey Brown about stepping down. "I told him that I was feeling like my work here was largely done. I had crossed over my 16-year marker, and it's probably time. I never wanted to be that person who's hanging around and overstaying their welcome," she said.
Three months later Brown announced that he would be leaving Ally at the end of 2023, so Morais decided to stay on bit longer to help with the transition. "I always told Jeff that we can't both leave at the same time, so I committed to helping the new CEO get on board," she said.
Morais' career in banking began by happenstance. After graduating from Penn State with a degree in operations management and business analysis, she was recruited in 1987 to work at Citi. "It was the only financial services company I interviewed with. I thought I was going to end up in packaged goods," she recalled. "I feel like I kind of fell into banking, and I loved it."
She started working at a Citi collection center. "It was a formative experience," she said. "These crusty New York collection guys took me in and set me on my way. It was really a great early training ground."
After learning the ropes, Morais moved into the bank's credit card division, then into marketing. She worked as the chief of staff for the head of the collections division, and then back into marketing for her last few years at Citi.
At this point in her career, Morais had met and married her now-husband, and since neither of them were from New York, they didn't want to put down roots there. They moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and she took a job at Bank of America in 1996. She first worked in the credit card direct marketing department, and then was the president of Home Focus Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of BofA that provided a variety of mortgage loan services including appraisal, title, flood search and settlement.
She next ran the bank's deposits and debit products business for two years, and spent her final two years at BofA as a customer experience executive.
In 2008, Morais was recruited to the credit arm of General Motors, GMAC, by its then-CEO Alvaro de Molina, a former BofA CFO she knew from her years there. At the time, GMAC was awaiting Federal Reserve approval to become a bank holding company. Morais said she wasn't sure if it was going to be a six month or a six year appointment.
The Fed approved the request, and Morais said the mandate at the time was to build a digital bank and grow deposits. In May 2010, GMAC rebranded itself as Ally Financial.
Over the next 14 years, Morais rose up the ranks at Ally. She started as a deposits executive and in 2015, she was promoted to CEO of Ally Bank, a subsidiary of Ally Financial. At the time, Ally Financial and Ally Bank had completely separate boards and separate primary regulators: the Federal Reserve was the parent company's regulator and the FDIC was Ally Bank's regulator. "JB [Jeff Brown] and I said, 'This is crazy. We need to be one Ally.' And so I stayed in the CEO bank role while we worked to get to a senior single regulator structure and make the bank the dominant operating entity," she said.
In 2017, Morais was named the president of consumer and commercial banking for the newly combined entity. She would remain in that role for seven and a half years and become a
The biggest challenges in her decades-long career in banking
While Morais said she has faced a lot of challenges during the course of her career, one of the biggest was in the customer experience role at BofA. "It was an influence-kind of job, meaning that my team and I were responsible for understanding the drivers, and understanding how to move the dial [for the customers]. And there were some things that were just very difficult to influence," she recalled.
And in the early days of Ally, Morias said there was a lot of skepticism from regulators, from its board, and even some internal stakeholders about whether a digital-only bank would not only survive but also thrive. "There was tremendous skepticism about whether we could do that. Could we really create relationships with consumers without branches?," she said.
"I've always been a leader that focuses on facts and data. So as the data began to mature, and we could begin to show longevity, and unbelievably strong retention rates and customer deepening ranks, the skeptics began to turn," she added.
Thoughts on leadership
For Morais, being authentic and getting to know your staff is key to being a successful leader.
"You have to create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up and voicing an opinion or asking a question or playing the role of chief contrarian," she said. "And in general, people want to work for leaders who are passionate about what they're doing. They have to have a vision and a purpose. And that is what gets people excited."
When she was coming up through the ranks, Morais said she was helped by leaders who saw something in her that she didn't see in herself. "And it's really important to take the time to get to know people and understand their gifts."
"I think great leaders have what I call the ability to listen between the lines. And I feel that is part of why we were successful at Ally. We were very clear about our purpose. And it didn't matter which team you were on. You could be in the technology team, the marketing team, the back office—everybody could articulate what we were trying to do. And when you get everybody marching generally in the same direction, it brings excitement and pride," she added.
Advice to women bankers
Morais said her best advice is to stay intellectually curious and take on a number of different types of roles to expand your skill set. "There were things I did at the time and I was like, 'okay, my resume is looking weird,' but it helped me to build a strong foundation of a lot of different skills which served me well over the years," she said.
She also encourages others to have a "posse" that supports you along the way. "It should be people that know you, who you trust and will be honest and open with you, giving you feedback — maybe sometimes telling you what you don't want to hear but you need to hear."
While she's not a fan of "schmoozing," Morais said thoughtful networking is crucial to building a successful career. "It's about building a broader network outside of your immediate circle — it's about building an ally in someone that might not be in your direct orbit."
And for women, Morais said it's especially important that they speak up. "Pick your seat at the table and use your voice. Don't just occupy a chair. You're there for a reason. Ask a smart question. Build on something that someone else said and affirm that you know your own opinions," she advised.
Her next chapter
One of the first things Morais did after retiring was to take a trip with her husband and their three adult sons. "We took our boys out to Wyoming and visited the Tetons and Yellowstone. And I was telling my husband when we were in Yellowstone — there is no wifi or cell service — that if I had been working, I would probably be twitching the whole time," she said.
She also intends to focus on her nonprofit work in Charlotte. She's on the boards of Junior Achievement of Central Carolinas, Charlotte Center City Partners, and the YMCA of Greater Charlotte.
Morais added she is actively in conversations with some corporate boards but in the meantime, has entered into what she calls her "discernment phase." "Things will probably make themselves more obvious over time, but I have a whole team of very close friends and I told them, don't let me jump into something right prematurely. It really does feel a bit luxurious to just have the option to choose wisely. And I want to choose things that are going to be impactful and that I'm passionate about," she said.
