Citizens Financial Group has appointed Aunoy Banerjee as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with effect from 24 October 2025. Banerjee, who joins from Barclays, steps into the role at one of the oldest financial institutions in the United States, a bank that traces its founding to 1828 and has grown into a substantial retail and commercial lender operating predominantly across the northeastern states. His appointment marks the conclusion of a CFO succession process that unfolded over several months and is closely watched by investors and analysts who regard the finance function as central to the bank's strategic execution.
Banerjee succeeds John Woods, who departed the CFO position on 15 August 2025 after serving in the role since February 2017, a tenure of more than eight years during which Citizens navigated the aftermath of its 2014 initial public offering, a sustained period of balance sheet growth, and the sharp interest-rate cycle of recent years. Woods's departure opened a significant vacancy at the top of the finance function, and the bank has been operating with an interim arrangement while the search for his permanent replacement concluded.
BANERJEE'S BACKGROUND AND SCOPE OF ROLE
Banerjee's arrival from Barclays brings a background in large-scale international banking operations to a leadership team at Citizens that is focused on delivering consistent financial performance and demonstrating the bank's capacity to compete effectively with both larger national institutions and nimbler regional peers. His experience at one of Britain's most globally active banks is seen as relevant to a CFO role that encompasses not only traditional financial control and reporting but also capital markets awareness and investor communication.
As CFO, Banerjee will be responsible for overseeing Citizens' financial reporting, treasury and capital management, investor relations, and the financial planning and analysis function that supports the bank's strategic decisions. The scope of the role reflects the complexity of managing the finances of a sizeable public company that operates across multiple business lines, including consumer banking, commercial banking, and capital markets advisory services that Citizens has been building out in recent years as part of a deliberate diversification of its revenue base.
CONTEXT IN US REGIONAL BANKING
The CFO change at Citizens Financial Group takes place against a backdrop of elevated complexity in the US regional banking sector, where institutions of Citizens' scale have been navigating the twin pressures of higher interest rates and heightened scrutiny of asset quality and liquidity following the regional banking turbulence of 2023. The ability of the finance function to communicate clearly with investors about the bank's balance sheet composition, loan loss provisions, and capital adequacy has become an increasingly important source of competitive differentiation among regional banks competing for institutional shareholder confidence.
Citizens Financial Group described Banerjee's appointment as reflective of the board's confidence in the calibre of executive talent the institution has been able to attract from the broader financial services industry. The bank said it expects the transition to the new CFO to be orderly and that Banerjee will be in a position to engage with the investment community shortly after assuming the role, a timeline that signals management's desire to re-establish continuity in the investor relations function following the extended period of transition that followed Woods's August departure.