Put your thoughts on what the new CEO had to say today here
45 replies (most recent on top)
Hope he does something for the employees that have been loyal to this company whether from BB&T or Suntrust. We suffered through a rigorous merger and now the ridiculous goals are burning everyone out to not even get a bonus at the end of quarter cuz you can’t bring in $5.6 million in a small town made up of SSI recipients. Want this company to see clients as people again and not just dollar signs.
Men, I just have a problem taking you seriously when you wear a nice coat, a nice shirt and …….. no tie. I’m sorry, but it looks sloppy and lazy.
@pj Completely agree. I have heard from processors they have only had one meeting with processing manager KB in 10 months. How would they be comfortable bringing things to her. Why has JW not done anything about this? I am in closing and we have gone downhill and no one seems to care about us or the clients.
@ks I wish MH would have a pull up with top producers in underwriting, processing, and closing to find out the issues. I have been on numerous calls where the top producers bring up issues and they are ignored.
@fh I think the worst thing this mortgage leadership allowed was the vertical lines. The operation was more efficient previously. There is no accountability with vertical management. It takes going through four people to get a simple answer. We have lost focus on the client who should be at the center of everything we do in our jobs.
@ad it’s 2026 and people still want to act like it’s 2019.
I’m thinking PMV is done.
@fh What? You don't like the glorious leaders big idea PUMP. If you need to tell people to pick up my phone then Truist is so out of touch with today's wants and needs by clients
I am hopeful he will get rid of all the layers in management in mortgage.
Copilot: Mike Lyons was hired as CEO of Truist to fix the bank first — stabilize operations, improve profitability, and clean up the lingering problems from the BB&T–SunTrust merger.
Phase 1 (now): Fix what Bill couldn’t
This is the explicit mandate:
- stabilize operations
- cut costs
- improve profitability
- finish the merger integration
- rebuild investor trust
Everything public points to this being the immediate priority.
Phase 2 (later): Optionality — including a sale
Here’s the part analysts whisper about: Lyons spent 13 years at PNC, running all business lines. He knows PNC’s acquisition playbook inside and out. If Truist eventually decides to sell, PNC is the most natural buyer, and Lyons is the perfect bridge.
But that is not the stated plan. It’s simply a strategic option that becomes more viable once the bank is cleaned up.
@dk The abysmal failure in compensation and benefits will need to be addressed, on top of opportunity. Everyone I have spoken to that left referenced both and a lack of faith in change as why they left.
My expectations were very low but after having watched and listened, I am cautiously optimistic as both as shareholder and teammate. He looks the part, talks the talk, time will tell if he can walk the walk. I think the fact that he's an outsider and not a nepo-hack that came up through the LDP group is ultimately a good thing.
I would have liked to hear a greater emphasis (or at least some acknowledgement) of how employees have had a rough go it for a number of years now and that engagement is as low as it's ever been. I can't be the only one who has noticed how we've experienced a massive brain drain / loss of talent over the last several years. In some markets (on the commercial lending side anyway) the teams are poor imitations of what they used to be and many of the lenders appear to be truly incompetent (can't read financial statements or even write in complete sentences); I'm embarrassed to call some of them teammates. Mike mentioned we can't "cut our way to solving Truist's problems", only through growth. If he truly believes that, I hope he (and the board) appreciates that we'll have to improve the talent on our lending teams and it won't be cheap.
@ac Amen on “flywheel”. I work at one of his former firms and had one of his disciples as a boss. “Flywheel” was every other metaphor. Good luck you all…. He’s way different from KK or BR (good thing) but he has zero warmth. He wasn’t brought in to improve morale or value feelings; he was brought in to raise shareholder value which probably means clean it up for a merger. Pittsburgh is lovely this time of year.
I thought it was a good introduction, he was funny, direct, & got to the point. I believe I heard him say layoffs are still happening. He was very direct about it and I appreciated the honesty & direct dialogue. No sugar coating. Truist is not ok right now, but let’s get to it and fix this mess together.
@bb I’m on the tech side and am living that nightmare. Late nights and weekends fixing the constant flow of issues. All because there are zero controls. Oh, and you better get those badge swipes in (to be honest, my manager, and most of tech managers take the don’t ask, don’t tell) approach. Total joke.
He seemed shocked that employees don't bank here.
Knowing what we do, who would?
He seem more competent than Billy Bob, which isn't saying much. But here's the problem: he's completely dodging the elephant in the room. The bank has hemorrhaged millions on the India outsourcing disaster, and the outages have been relentless. Until he actually confronts this catastrophe head-on, he's just another snake in a suit protecting his own paycheck while the company burns. Employees on the tech side are working 20 hour days to put out these fires AND are now being required to be on site 5 days a week.
He knows the score.
The merger was treated like a merger of two investment banking houses where one side had to win at all cost and not a regional bank putting the client first.
How may senior BB&T folks still around? They all had stock and vested pensions and are now double dipping collecting benefits along with new job salaries.
Stay tuned, the cat litter box will finally be cleaned. It might take another year, but it's going to happen.
@ay sorry I meant to say “ The folks on the front lines with customers AND worker bees in offices for the most part are doing their best”
@aw I agree nothing is going to improve if morale stays this low. Dissent is a lot more expensive than treating your employees like they are valued and you respect them. I disagree with current RTO policy but it’s just one part of the problem. Since the merger:
More expensive health benefits, lower 401k matches, merit increases lower than inflation, lack of job security, constant reorganizations that make no sense, the constant threat of AI making all of us obsolete, the constant fear of the pension going away, the complete lack of reward or recognition, the lack of any investment of any sort in any employee, regular technology failures that affect our customers and make it near impossible to function as a bank, a continued over reliance on offshore contractors like Infosys, regularly failing audit after audit after audit, etc etc etc. the list goes on and on.
Frankly, as a bank…. We su-k. And it’s a top down problem. The folks on the front lines with customers are worker bees in offices for the most part are doing their best. They just have no support. All feedback offered to the people that can fix it (I.e. executive leadership and senior management) is ignored. And that’s why I don’t bank with Truist.
I’m curious to see what the results for all of these recent engagement surveys are. I’m more curious in how the new CEO will address those results.
Well he isn’t BillyBob so there’s that. Oh, every other sentence didn’t have purpose in it. Now Michael, get to work rooting out the causes of this banks failures. You already know the players so either change them or change the game!
And none of those are going to improve with employee morale at the bottom of the barrel. Since any relaxation of RTO is off the table, I'm not quite sure what else is going to work. But I'm not nearly as big-brained as ol' Mike so I'm sure he's got this covered...
And no one would miss a dimwitted bootlicker like you. Such a shame...
All I heard was blah blah blah, all I care about is $. Would not be surprised if layoffs were coming. I was not impressed.
At least he acknowledge that Truist isn’t performing well and is near the last thing up here group. That’s something other leaders won’t say. He also acknowledge that it seems impossible to get the most basic stuff done. He said he plans to fix that. He also acknowledge that clients aren’t happy and that we could be doing better and all of those areas.
All I could see was an SNL skit for Ben Stiller….
@a5 at least you didn’t go with wa-ker…
https://youtu.be/5x0PzUoJS-U?is=oihaBDnEPzwapRpT
Not really sure what I think yet. Don’t trust any leader in the company (probably even this industry) anymore after what we’ve seen since the merger.
That being said, he acknowledged that this company is under performing and that it is not doing well since the merger. I haven’t really heard any other leader expressly say that, even though that’s what the media/news has been reporting on for sometime now.
He also acknowledged that there is no energy in the office or something like that. Basically implying people appear unhappy or at least very low energy.
This guy did a better job of acknowledging that something is wrong in one day, than all of the other “leaders” in this company have done in several years.
Doesn’t look like he’d be a fun hang though. A little intense.
@ae I agree. Talk is cheap, but I feel cautiously optimistic.
@af id--t. I am in the office replying you using my cell phone now.
@ac imagine talking about growth using the same leadership team
@ad still sounds like you wfh. I’ve been here 6 years and never actually wfh full time. But taking away our 1 day of flexibility for dr appts/ etc is frustrating
I was pleasantly surprised. He didn’t spend the majority of the time talking about the color purple or our purpose. He acknowledged we have issues and that we need clarity around strategy. Only time will tell if positive change will happen, but for the first time in a long time I was encouraged by what I heard.
@aa go find another job. It is 2026 and people are still missing the 2020 year
Missing a fair share of EI. Great that he's super pumped coming off his hot tan summer, but folks here have been ground to dust with brutal & misguided org/process change for years. There was no acknowledgement of any of that or frankly anything about true support for actual human teammates. PS - "Flywheel" needs to expire now.
@a4 Not everyone wants to WFH five days a week. Even if it’s just one day at home would greatly boost morale at least in our group. Especially when our manager works from home (from their beach house) but expects us to be in the office all five days.
@a4 sounds like someone who currently wfh. Some people want to be home to save money on gas/ car maintenance
@a4 SYBAU
If you don't value us as employees, why would we trust our money with you?
He’s just another Ivy League tw-t that got this position from a crony