By GINO FANELLI
For the past six years, KeyBank’s Rochester market
has been led by James Barger, who served as the face of the bank’s local
expansion as it became one of the key players in Rochester’s financial landscape.
That expansion was largely due to the 2016 acquisition of Buffalo’s First
Niagara by Cleveland-based Key, which in turn led to the development of the
$16.5 billion Community Benefits Plan, a 13-state philanthropic mission aimed
at bettering the communities that Key serves. Barger, an integral part of
flexing that resource locally, stepped down from his position last month for a
new role as market president for the Connecticut and Massachusetts market.
Canandaigua native and former PGA pro Phil Muscato is
filling Barger’s shoes as market president and commercial banking leader.
Muscato began his 20-year career in finance after learning of his father’s
diagnosis of lung cancer. He dropped his career as a teaching professional in
Cape Cod to return to his hometown, eventually taking on a financial analyst
role at Citibank.
“I had a very good friend of mine who was the head
of HR for Citibank, and she said, ‘hey, you got a good personality and have a
gold background; we think you’d be a good banker,’” Muscato said.
Muscato came
on board at Key shortly after Barger became local president, leaving his role
at HSBC for KeyBank’s commercial team.
“It’s just been great ever since,” Muscato said. “We
have more of a family atmosphere than any other place I’ve been.”
In 2016, KeyBank held 6.55 percent of the market in
the Rochester metropolitan area, valued at about $1.4 billion in local
deposits, making it the sixth largest banking institution in the area, according
to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In 2018, with First Niagara folded into its
share of the market, KeyBank was the third largest in the region, behind M&T
and JP Morgan, respectively, with 13.66 percent of the market and just under
$2.6 billion in deposits.
“We’ve had so much, and success breeds success,”
Muscato said. “And we’ve had so much success in every line of business, from
our retail to our business bank and private bank and all of our affiliates.
People just get amped up to keep up with the momentum we’ve built up here.”
The acquisition of First Niagara still stands for
Muscato as the biggest driver for KeyBank locally, saying it “energized” KeyBank
in the market. And the Community Benefits Plan was a paramount piece of
immersing KeyBank into the Rochester community.
Officially rolled out in 2017, the five-year plan targeted
philanthropic investments in five key sectors: $5 billion for residential
mortgage lending; $2.5 billion for small business lending; $8.8 billion for
community investment; $3 million for product development aimed at underserved
rural and urban communities; and $175 million for philanthropy. In its first
two years, the plan invested $211.4 million into the Rochester area. The benevolence
included a $50,000 pledge to work co-op OWN Rochester last November; a $100,000
donation to the Ibero-American Action League and the Urban League of Rochester
in May 2018; $32.5 million for small
business loans in low-to-moderate income communities; and $33.6 million in
mortgage lending to low-to-moderate income residents
Corporate responsibility officer Kawanza Humphrey is
in charge of choosing organizations to support, while Barger, as the face of
KeyBank, handed out oversized checks and established a real local presence. For
the past three years, it was tough to show up at a philanthropic event in
Rochester and not run into Barger.
“We need to
be at these events,” Muscato said, and “advocate for these organizations,
because these are the organizations we work with, and it’s important to be
involved with them. Jim did an amazing job of that, and I had a lot of
discussions about that, even when I was in a different role; you need to be out
there, you need to be a face, you need to advocate.”
Muscato already has a good standing in philanthropic
endeavors, serving with the American Heart Association, Junior Achievement,
Heritage Christian Services and on the board of Canandaigua’s F.F. Thompson
Hospital Foundation. That background means the Community Benefits Plan sits
close to Muscato’s heart as a key role in establishing KeyBank as a true
community driver.
“The word of our year has been collaboration, and …
we’re really standing behind that,” Muscato said.
Especially important to Muscato is the $33.6 million
in mortgages loaned to low-to-moderate income residents. His philosophy is that
owning a home is invaluable not only to low-income residents but to building a
better community as a whole.
There’s a lot
of work to be done on that front in Rochester. According to ACT Rochester’s
2013-17 Hard Facts report, 28 percent of black Rochesterians own a home,
compared to 31 percent statewide and 42 percent nationally. Whites owned homes
at a rate of 43 percent, compared to 64 percent statewide and 69 percent
nationally.
“There’s no
better feeling than to be a homeowner, and we need to have programs in place to
help people get there,” Muscato said. “The fact that KeyBank has dedicated
resources to do that is helping the community.”
For Muscato,
it’s a critical time for Rochester and KeyBank, as he sees an economy on the
upswing. According to the 2017 census, the median household income in Rochester
was $32,347, about half the state median for the same year, at $64,894. But
Rochester’s median income grew 2 percent from 2016, compared to 1.2 percent for
the entire state. Likewise, unemployment was down to 3.8 percent in June 2019,
lower than the state’s 4 percent. They’re
trends that Muscato sees as adding up to a brighter economic future.
“Rochester’s
a legacy market, but that doesn’t mean we can’t grow,” Muscato said. “We can
advance what we’ve learned … lend money where applicable and help grow the economy
here. We should be, I hope, in a pretty good position.”
gfanelli@bridgetowermedia.com/5857759692
