Americans owe an all-time high of nearly $1 trillion on their credit cards, setting the stage for a possible surge in consumer delinquencies and defaults.
“There are nascent signs of trouble brewing,” investment firm Glenmede Trust Co. warned in an April research note. “An ever–larger share of credit balances have transitioned to early stages of delinquency, consistent with past periods of recession.”
Lenders are feeling the losses, including McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. The credit card giant reported a 60% drop in profits to $960 million in the first quarter from the same period a year ago, largely due to customers defaulting on their credit cards and car loan debts.
Like other large banks, Capital One is pumping up provisions for credit losses, as it set aside $2.8 billion in the first quarter, up from $677 million in the year-earlier period.
Not only are more customers at least 30 days late on their payments (at Capital One, 3.66% of total U.S. card holders in the first quarter were late, up from 2.32% a year ago), but companies are racking up more for write-offs — debts they never expect to collect (4.04% of total loans in the first quarter, up from 2.12% a year ago at Capital One).
Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank told analysts in April that he “feels very good about the business,” given that defaults remain low by historic standards. However, he stated, profits could take another hit this year as rising delinquencies segue into actual losses.
Americans are piling on debt in the face of high inflation and rising interest rates.
Total credit card debt surged $61 billion at the end of last year to a record $986 billion and stayed at that level through the first quarter of this year, surpassing the pre-pandemic high of $927 billion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Auto loan balances increased by $10 billion in the first quarter.
Consumers typically pay down debt in January after the holidays, but not this year.
“Rising living costs and stagnating wages caused savings to decline, creating excess demand for credit card debt,” financial analyst Harrison Schwartz writes in a March report on financial news site “Seeking Alpha.”
“Initially, this situation was great for Capital One as demand for its products rose,” Schwartz continues. “However, the rapid decline in consumer sentiment and savings over the past year has caused default rates and expected loan losses to increase.”
In all, 46% of U.S. cardholders carry balances from month to month, up from 39% last year, according to January data, the most recent, from financial information provider Bankrate.com.
The average credit card balance per consumer this year is $5,733, up 14.4% from a year earlier, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.
“We’re seeing three big trends with respect to credit card debt,” says Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst with Bankrate.com. “More people are carrying more debt and that debt costs more than ever (an average APR of 20.37%), the highest since we started measuring in 1985.”
Also, it’s the first time in the central bank’s 20-year report on household debt that credit balances failed to fall during the first quarter, which “could foreshadow trouble for later in the year,” Rossman says.
Interest rates likely will remain high for the foreseeable future, he adds, saying, “My top tip would be to sign up for a 0% balance transfer credit card (still widely available).”
The economic story facing consumers is straightforward, Schwartz says. “Rising living costs and excessive consumer spending on credit have caused many households to suffer significant declines in stability.”
Virginia Business held its 18th annual Virginia CFO Awards banquet at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond on June 8. Sponsored by Truist Financial Corp., Yount, Hyde and Barbour (YHB) and Accent Professional Recruiting, the event honored 34 CFOs from around the commonwealth, nominated in four award categories, representing a variety of nonprofits, government agencies and for-profit businesses. (See Pages 63-68 for the full list of nominees and finalists, with winner profiles.) Photos by Rick DeBerry.
1. L to R: Shannon Updike, Jon Morris, Lisa Lambrecht, Lisa Clause, Challen Mabry and Sherry Guerrant of HopeTree Family Services2. L to R: Doug Bierly, Vanessa Hampton, Warren Van der Waag and Eric Mann of Truist3. L to R: Renee Figurelle, Lisa Olverson and Karen Joyner of Virginia Peninsula Foodbank4. L to R: Cindy Yao and Ken Newsome of Markel Food Group5. L to R: Warren Thompson and Ali Azima of Thompson Hospitality Corp.6. L to R: Beth Shivak and Maria Tedesco of Atlantic Union Bank7. L to R: Jason Ward and Bruce Campbell of AMF Bakery Systems. 8. The National Apartment Association named former Zumper Senior DEI and Culture Champion Dana Duckworth, a Hampton Roads resident, its 2023 DEI Champion at a ceremony held in early June in Atlanta. Photo courtesy National Apartment Association.9. L to R: Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges President Matt Shank and Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton attended VFIC’s annual board of trustees meeting in early June at The Omni Homestead Resort. Photo courtesy VFIC. (Editor’s note: Virginia Business Publisher Bernie Niemeier serves on the VFIC Board of Trustees.) 10. 3north Director and Senior Project Manager Andrea Almond and Designer Quinton Mason hosted an exhibit during the Storefront for Community Design’s inaugural DesignRVA event on June 24 at The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design in Richmond. Photo by Fultz & Singh Architects’ Kylie Heald.11. L to R: Cameron K. Gallagher Foundation Executive Director Grace Gallagher and Heather Hayes, executive education consultant with Gale, part of Cengage Group, held a check of the proceeds from Cameron’s Collection and Cameron’s Camp for Wellness ebook sales, which Gale presented to the foundation on June 6.12. L to R: Lynnhaven Dive Center co-owner Lindsey Hillier Hotchkiss, state Del. Anne Ferrell Tata, Attorney General Jason Miyares and dive center co-owner Scott Hotchkiss celebrated the June 16 grand opening of the Lynnhaven Dive Center and Swim School’s Big Mike’s Aquatic Center in Virginia Beach.13. Motivational speaker, author, radio host and singer Willie Jolley (center) addressed Northern Virginia Association of Realtors members on June 20 at NVAR’s headquarters in celebration of Juneteenth. L to R: NVAR Director of Education Renée Brown; NVAR Associate Director of Education Teresa Watson; Jolley; Victoria Milbourne, NVAR’s manager of communications, experience and engagement; and Reggie Copeland, principal broker at CR Copeland Real Estate. Photo courtesy NVAR.14. On June 15, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Amazon.com Inc. executives and state and local leaders took part in a ceremonial ribbon cutting for Amazon’s HQ2 headquarters in Arlington County. Photo courtesy Amazon.
In 2009, Donald Hart found himself in an enviable position.
Leading up to his graduation from Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, Hart had been accepted to a slew of the state’s public, four-year universities: Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, Old Dominion University, George Mason University and James Madison University.
Attracted by the convenience of studying close to home, as well as the opportunity to play trumpet in the university’s new marching band, he wound up choosing ODU. But there was another reason ODU stood out from the competition: sticker price.
For the 2009-2010 academic year, ODU’s annual tuition and fees came to $7,318, a price tag that would increase to $8,450 by the time Hart graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and about $15,000 in school debt. ODU charged less than most other Virginia public universities Hart considered, and the tuition and fees didn’t even factor in room and board, or the cost of moving to a different city. He wanted to get the best value for his money.
A decade after graduation, Old Dominion University alumni Donald Hart trains financial advisers in Virginia Beach for New York Life Insurance Co., a job that pays him $140,000 to $160,000 per year. Photo by Mark Rhodes
“That was a little bit of a factor, too,” Hart recalls. “I’m like, ‘Well, do I want to have extra debt, or do I just want to get a degree and [start a career]?”
After graduation, Hart landed a job with New York Life Insurance Co., which provided matching contributions that helped him pay off his student loan debt about two years ago. After a stint working in New York City, he’s back in Virginia Beach, training financial advisers for the insurance company, earning about $140,000 to $160,000 annually, including bonuses.
“If I look back, finishing college, I would never have guessed I [would be] where I am today at all,” Hart says. “The critical thinking skills and the building relationships and doing different things while in college, I think that all … [helped] mold me to be successful in really any business I would have chosen.”
Since Hart graduated a decade ago, the cost of going to college in Virginia has continued to escalate, now averaging $14,538 per year across the state’s 15 public four-year colleges and universities, according to data from the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia. That’s up from $10,387 in the 2013-2014 academic year — a nearly 40% increase over the past decade.
With the cost of earning a degree soaring to new heights — the national average to attend a four-year public university in 2022-2023 was $10,950 annually for tuition and fees, according to the College Board — fewer people are heading off to college, and debate has ensued over the value of postsecondary education. (Enrollment numbers could be further chilled, academics say, by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling overturning a Biden administration plan to wipe out more than $400 billion
in student debt.)
Furthermore, amid a tight labor market, policymakers and employers are placing less emphasis on four-year degrees and more on certificate programs and other nondegree career pathways.
Perhaps the most prominent example can be found in a new state government hiring policy. Effective July 1, in an effort to attract more state workers, Gov. Glenn Youngkin eliminated degree requirements and/or preferences for about 90% of state job listings. (Maryland implemented a similar change in 2022.)
Nevertheless, even amid record tuition rates, a college or university degree remains the likely best avenue for increasing one’s lifetime earning power, experts say, providing a return on investment unrivaled by stocks or bonds.
“Investing in a college education for many people will be the second biggest investment they ever make, probably after buying a house,” says Martin Van Der Werf, director of editorial and education policy at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW). “It’s more expensive than buying a car, which is probably the other major purchase many people face in their lives. So, to actually understand what you’re going to get from that investment … is a pretty important piece of data.”
What it’s worth
Graduating from a public four-year university can add from $765,000 to more than $1 million to an individual’s lifetime earnings in the U.S., according to a 2021 report prepared for SCHEV by Virginia Commonwealth University‘s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs focusing on postcollege outcomes among public college and university graduates from 2007 to 2018.
Not surprisingly, a 2022 report on return on investment from bachelor’s degrees, Georgetown’s CEW came to a similar conclusion — adding that public colleges, with lower tuitions and lesser student debt, provide better returns on average than private colleges.
Forty years after enrolling — or about the length of a career — average graduates of four-year public colleges can expect a net economic gain of $1.03 million in adjusted earnings, compared with $984,000 for the average private nonprofit college graduate, according to the Georgetown report, which ranked 4,500 U.S. colleges, including community colleges, public two- and four-year institutions, private nonprofit colleges and for-profit colleges, by their return on investment.
Ten years after enrollment, though, the story is a bit different. Community colleges and institutions that offer associate degrees and certificate programs provide better short-term returns because graduates can get to work quickly, often with less debt and fewer years of study than their four-year counterparts, CEW found. Over the decades, however, four-year graduates have much greater earnings power. (A 2019 CEW study found that associate degree and certificate holders brought in a median $141,000 in 10-year adjusted net earnings, compared with $107,000 for all college graduates.)
“College typically pays off, but the return on investment varies by credential, program of study and institution,” CEW Director Anthony P. Carnevale says in a statement. “It’s important to inform people about the risk of taking out loans but not graduating, which could leave them without the increased earnings that would help them repay those loans.”
Here in Virginia, it may come as no surprise that some of the state’s most prestigious public and private universities rank higher than their in-state peers when it comes to return on investment. Examining how much money a degree could bring a graduate over a 40-year career, private liberal arts school Washington and Lee University leads the way at $1.82 million, followed by U.Va. with $1.64 million and Virginia Tech at $1.55 million, according to Georgetown’s 2022 report.
After just 10 years, however, Newport News-based Riverside College of Health Careers, a private, not-for-profit school offering associate degrees and certificates in health care, ranks No. 1 for return on investment, bringing $263,000 in adjusted net earnings, followed by Northern Virginia Community College at $225,000, according to CEW’s data. Washington and Lee ranks No. 3 for 10-year net earnings, at $216,000.
It takes less time and less money to earn an associate degree or certificate, Van Der Werf, one of the study’s authors, says. While some students enroll in community college with plans to transfer to a four-year institution, others are seeking a quick career boost, such as a promotion or other job opportunities, after earning an associate degree or credential.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly earnings of bachelor’s degree graduates in 2022 was $1,432, compared with $1,005 for associate degree holders and $853 for workers with just a high school diploma.
“Basically … having a college degree leads to greater earnings,” Van Der Werf says.
A college education provides graduates a vehicle for social mobility, says David Burge, George Mason University’s vice president for enrollment management. Photo by Will Schermerhorn
‘Shopper’s mentality’
Earnings are only one data point that experts consider when examining a college degree’s potential ROI; the broader picture can be much more nuanced, based on a variety of factors. For instance, pay may vary depending on where someone lives. And universities with higher graduation rates generally produce graduates with higher earnings. Majors matter, too — a professional with a bachelor’s degree in engineering may make a higher salary than a worker with an arts and humanities degree.
According to the VCU report, 56.3% of 15,348 survey respondents who earned a certificate, associate or bachelor’s degree from a Virginia higher education institution said their education was worth the cost. That’s a satisfaction rate that varies when broken down by degree type, race, gender, discipline, geography and graduation year; for example, 64% of those who majored in STEM disciplines agreed their education was worth the cost, compared with 47.6% of liberal arts graduates.
During the past five years at Virginia Tech, parents and prospective students have been asking more and more frequently about return on investment — including more affluent families, says Juan Espinoza, director of admissions and associate vice president for enrollment and degree management. “If you’re looking at affordability,” he says, “you’re also looking at ROI. You can’t disconnect the two.”
Families have more of a “shoppers’ mentality” these days, given the national conversation about whether college is worth it, says Espinoza, a 2004 Tech graduate who was a first-generation college student. In particular, parents want to know about student success, including graduation rates, which were 85% at Virginia Tech last year, according to SCHEV. “I think it’s a legitimate question,” he says, “and one that colleges need to be able to explain to students and their families.”
University officials frequently point to student success when talking about ROI, and that’s a value that may transcend a padded bank account. A college education, they contend, can lead to healthier life outcomes, greater civic participation and upward social mobility.
Getting ahead
At George Mason University, many students “are starting behind the start line,” says Saskia Campbell, GMU’s executive director of university career services, citing the university’s history of educating a diverse student body, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Forty years after enrollment, a GMU bachelor’s degree recipient is likely to see a net economic gain of $1.4 million, ranking GMU No. 6 among Virginia’s public and private nonprofit colleges and universities for that data point, according to Georgetown’s study. And while GMU had a 91.4% admittance rate for the 2021-2022 school year, it also had a 70% graduation rate.
Virginia Commonwealth University focuses on providing students with real-world skills-building and networking opportunities in addition to academics, says Maggie Tolan, senior assistance vice president for student services. Photo by Caroline Martin
“To me, that is the very definition of social mobility,” says David Burge, vice president for enrollment management.“You give people a chance to be successful, you support them while they’re on their journey and as they exit and are always there for them as they come back, and you will build that reputation by delivering something of value.”
Among the signs of a GMU degree’s value, Campbell points out, is that 89% of GMU graduates are working in a role related to their career goals within six months. GMU’s location in Fairfax County and proximity to major companies is another example. More than 600 employers, including Fortune 500 companies like Reston-based General Dynamics Corp. and McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp., recruit on campus, and there’s a waitlist of others wanting to participate in career fairs. “And that’s just my office,” she says.
Maggie Tolan, VCU’s senior assistant vice president for student services, wrapped up new student orientation in June. Her presentation to incoming freshmen — a third of whom are first-generation college students — included a diagram of a bobsled.
“If I just give you the textbook on how to bobsled, you’re not going to be a good Olympic bobsledder, right?” Tolan asks. “You’re going to need to practice. A lot of what we talk about at VCU is there’s your degree, but it’s really what you’re doing in the four years to build the résumé, to build the network.”
VCU’s tools for student success include “major maps,” year-by-year charts that help students set goals in categories ranging from degree planning to developing career skills and preparing for life after college. VCU also requires students to participate in real-world experiences like internships.
It has a high acceptance rate (92% for the 2021-2022 academic year), but a lower graduation rate (67%) than some of its similarly sized peers. However, bachelor’s degree holders from VCU — where the colleges of Art and Humanities and Sciences are the largest — can expect their degrees to net them $1.03 million in earnings power over a 40-year career, according to Georgetown’s study.
“For our [graduates] … we are earning … 77% more than a high school graduate that never went to college,” says Tolan. “I think that’s a pretty good darn investment.”
Buyer beware
Those who tout higher education’s return on investment also acknowledge that student loan debt remains a huge concern.
About 1 million Virginians owed $41 billion in federal student loan debt in 2020, according to the VCU Wilder report. While a college degree holder may make more money over the course of a career than people who didn’t earn a degree, Tod Massa, SCHEV’s director of policy analytics and data warehousing, offers a “buyer beware” caveat.
“College is not for everyone. And, unless you can afford it, I don’t think you should see the college experience as an experience to purchase,” Massa says. While college is a “high value opportunity,” it’s not a guarantee a student will land a particular job, he says. Prospective students and families should also consider what they value about education.
Nationally, undergraduate enrollment remains about 6% to 7% below pre-pandemic levels. About 1.16 million fewer undergrad students were enrolled in spring 2023 than in spring 2020, according to a May report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Undergraduate admissions at Virginia’s 15 four-year public universities performed better, declining just 2% between fall 2020 and fall 2022, according to an analysis of SCHEV data.
Enrollment in the state’s 23 public community colleges has also declined, from a 2011 peak of 197,226 to 146,553 in fall 2022 (up slightly from 144,215 in fall 2021). There tends to be a direct relationship between low unemployment and community college enrollment dips, Massa explains.
Virginia Community College System Chancellor David Doré, (see related Q&A) calls student debt one of the “most significant problems in the country right now,” adding that the system needs to do a better job of marketing itself to become more nimble, faster and better designed around students’ needs.
With more than 51,000 full- and part-time students, Northern Virginia Community College, is by far the state’s largest two-year public college. NOVA has a labor market team that studies regional job posting data as well as long-term government forecasts to keep up with the region’s needs, says Steve Partridge, NOVA’s vice president of strategy, research and workforce innovation. The team frequently consults area employers about their needs in order to better structure learning and programs. Still, Partridge says, the school can’t keep up with the regional demand for IT workers.
Many of NOVA’s students work while attending school — 38,595 are part-time students, according to 2021-2022 SCHEV data. Students who are already in the working world are likely to be more focused on the income they’d like to make, adding to their determination to reach their goals.
“I think the working adult has a much better view of that ROI, because they’re often self-funding,” Partridge says. “When they borrow, they know what they’re borrowing, because they’re probably also paying the rent. … They’re very, very interested in what the job market is going to look like when they graduate and where the opportunities will be when they graduate.”
Richmond developer Duke Dodson fondly remembers spending summer days as a child at Colonial Beach, a Northern Neck beach town bordering Maryland on the Potomac River. So, when the town listed 12 parcels of land for sale in 2020, he jumped at the opportunity.
“My grandparents went to Colonial Beach back in the day to eat, drink and dance,” Dodson recalls. “It was booming in the ’50s — like a mini-Atlantic City.” Then legal in Maryland, casinos with slot machines were built atop piers in the river, reachable from Colonial Beach. But “laws changed, the casinos closed, and the town struggled a little bit.”
“CoBe on the Potomac is giving the town the momentum it needs,” Evko says. “Duke Dodson has been really engaged with our citizens and stakeholders and has family ties here. We’re working together to honor the town’s history and culture while we evolve and grow our tax base.”
The project’s first phase, School Hill Townes, opened in October 2022 with 13 town homes, a putting green and swimming pool. For the second phase, completed in June, Dodson transformed three 100-plus-year-old buildings to accommodate two vacation rental apartments and two commercial tenants: Circa1892 wine and cheese shop, named for Colonial Beach’s origins as a Victorian-era steamboat summer resort town for D.C. residents, and CoBe Workspaces, a coworking space with an old bank vault serving as a conference room.
“Our favorite thing is seeing people enjoy spaces that were once blighted buildings,” says Dodson. “We like [developing] a cluster of projects together that help a neighborhood come back to life.”
CoBe’s third phase, scheduled for an October opening, includes two restaurants, Drift and Muse. Above the restaurants will be Osprey Flats, a community of nine condos named for the town’s prominent bird population. CoBe’s fourth phase calls for a waterfront boutique hotel, but plans aren’t complete.
Partners for CoBe on the Potomac include Richmond-area firms Campfire, Dana Hennesey Designs, Fultz & Singh Architects, Timmons Group, and THS Construction. Dodson estimates the project has created 260 construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs.
During a virtual meeting of Virginia energy stakeholders in late June, Dominion Energy Innovation Center Executive Director Adam Sledd posed a question: How can Virginia become a leader in climate technology innovation?
That’s the kind of ambitious vision that Sledd hopes will carry DEIC to victory in the second and final stage of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, which is aimed at building strategic partnerships in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, particularly in underserved communities.
In June, DEIC — an Ashland-based entrepreneurship support organization for energy-related startups — and the Virginia Small Business Development Center’s International Business Development program at George Mason University — an initiative helping startups and small businesses reach international markets — were among 40 accelerators nationwide to make it past the SBA competition’s first stage, which came with a $50,000 prize. This summer, both organizations are in the running for awards of up to $150,000 in the second stage. Winners are expected to be announced by Oct. 1.
“We won that first phase because we have a great group of partners,” Sledd says, “and we have this clear goal about how we want to support entrepreneurs decarbonizing the economy.”
A nonprofit spinoff of Activation Capital, DEIC’s partners also include Dominion Energy Inc., Virginia Bio, Hanover County and Ashland. DEIC previously won the stage one award in the 2021 competition. This time, Program Director Braden Croy says, DEIC is focusing its proposal on a spring 2024 statewide summit on entrepreneurship in the energy industry.
At George Mason, Virginia SBDC’s IBD program is centering its competition proposal around efforts to help STEM-related small businesses expand into international markets.
“We’re looking to work with more companies and underserved communities, particularly Black-owned businesses, with this funding,” says Aaron Miller, Virginia SBDC’s director of international business development. “We want to create a model and approach that we can share with other SBDCs around the country.”
While Virginia ranks 13th among states for GDP, it’s ranked 24th for exports of trade goods. The IBD program aims to boost Virginia exports by teaching startups how to navigate international markets, Miller says.
“We bring that technical assistance directly to them, whether it’s developing an international business plan [or] making sure that they’re focused on the right markets,” Miller says. “It all comes down to resource allocation for a small business, making sure that you’re investing in international expansion [at] the right time.”
When BB&T recruited Thomas Ransom, a Black economics student at Hampden-Sydney College, to join its management developmentprogram in the late 1990s, he quickly had to pick up the world of banking and its culture.
The Urbanna native says he’d never met a banker before starting at BB&T and certainly didn’t know what moves to make to climb the corporate ladder. He had no one in his family he could talk to about work. But he leaned into his differences, forged professional relationships and learned how to “get comfortable being different.”
Today, as Virginia regional president for Truist Financial Corp. — the Charlotte, North Carolina-based megabank formed in 2019 by the merger of BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. — it’s important to Ransom that Truist helps people who look like him succeed.
“If you haven’t been in that environment, or [you are] in a room where you’re the only one that looks like yourself, it can be a challenge,” he says.
Since 2020, after nationwide outrage following the police murder of George Floyd, a Black man living in Minneapolis, the banking and credit union industry — like much of corporate America — has taken a critical look at itself and how it can broaden its reach in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. Progress has been made, both in leadership positions as well as across the workforce, but in an industry that has been historically run by white male executives, there’s still work to be done, industry executives acknowledge.
In Virginia, three of the largest nation’s banks have Black men as market leaders — Ransom at Truist; Jermaine Johnson, Greater Washington, D.C., and Virginia regional president for Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank; and Victor Branch, Richmond market president for Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp.
“Companies that are more diverse in their workforce and their management … tend to perform better,” says Virginia Bankers Association President and CEO Bruce Whitehurst. “It’s a smart thing.”
A 2020 study from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on their executive teams were 36% more profitable than those in the bottom quartile.
Being intentional
Whether establishing talent pipelines at universities, internal leadership development programs or cultural changes, banks and credit unions are working to broaden their workforces.
“I have seen the industry grow and evolve and change and move in the right direction,” says Branch, adding that Bank of America’s leadership is “committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workspace.”
Bank of America’s 14-person board now includes five women and two Black men. Additionally, 55% of the bank’s national management team includes women and people of color, up from 50% in 2020. About 50% of its workforce of about 217,000 are women. And 49% of the overall workforce is racially or ethnically diverse, up from 45% in 2020, according to the bank’s 2022 annual report.
At Truist, Ransom has played a key role in establishing scholarships, internships and other partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, such as Virginia State University, where he delivered the fall 2022 commencement speech.
Truist has set a goal of increasing female leadership by 20% and ethnically diverse representation in leadership by 20% by 2025. Additionally, it has set a goal of raising its percentage of ethnically diverse senior leaders to 17.2%.
The bank’s 21-member board of directors of 14 men and seven women includes two Black men, two Black women and one Hispanic woman. In 2021, Truist’s workforce was 62.8% white, 18.7% Black, 10% Hispanic and 5.7% Asian, according to data analytics consultancy GlobalData. Women in 2021 made up 63.5% of all Truist workers but only 28.6% of senior leadership, up from 22.1% in 2019.
PNC Financial Services Group Inc. also is focused on increasing diversity.
In 2020, PNC held two major leadership forums, convening hundreds of the company’s Black executives, during which the company set goals, such as hiring a corporate social responsibility officer.
After the forums, PNC provided more opportunities for mentoring and advocacy and became “more intentional around giving people of diverse backgrounds an opportunity,” Johnson says. Of the leaders who attended the first forum, 25% have been promoted in the past three years, Johnson says, calling it a “real, tangible result” of the bank’s intentions — and success — in diversifying its leadership.
“The word that stood out to me is ‘intentionality,’” he adds. “I think all of our leaders need to be intentional … [to] broaden the workforce, broaden the experience of people who contribute to our effort each and every day.”
In November 2022, PNC’s board established its Special Committee on Equity and Inclusion to assist with oversight of management’s equity and inclusion efforts, externally and internally.
PNC’s 12-member board, which has four female directors, is 25% racially or ethnically diverse, with members including one Black woman, one Hispanic man and one Indian woman. (Another Black director, former Microsoft Corp. executive Toni Townes-Whitly, stepped down from the board this year after she became CEO-elect for Reston-based Fortune 500 government contractor SAIC Inc.)
PNC’s workforce diversity increased slightly from 2020 to 2021, according to a filing with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 2021, the bank’s 58,599-person workforce was 59.58% female, with a diversity mix of 65.6% white, 14.8% Black, 10.7% Hispanic and 6.4% Asian in 2021. The year before, PNC had more than 7,000 fewer workers, and its diversity mix was 70.2% white, 14.2% Black, 6.83% Hispanic and 6.3% Asian.
By comparison, the largest bank headquartered in Virginia, McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp., has three Black male directors and three women on its 12-person board. Women made up just under 51% of its 55,943-person workforce in 2022. Capital One’s workforce diversity profile last year was 48.5% white, 20.3% Asian, 18.4% Black and 9.5% Hispanic. The bank’s percentage of Asian employees rose from 18.66% in 2020, while other demographics remained essentially flat.
In 2021, Capital One won numerous national awards recognizing its diversity, inclusion and belonging efforts, including support for workers with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ+ employees, people of color, women and millennials. The credit card giant’s outreach efforts that year included increased partnerships with HBCUs and expansion of a program aimed at engaging first-generation college students with skills-building.
Reflecting communities
Community banks and credit unions also are stepping up diversity efforts, with many, like Suffolk-based TowneBank, creating internal councils devoted to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“We recognize that the look of banking in general was that of white men, and so, [it was] really saying we are going to … [focus] on why aren’t we attracting a diverse representation to the bank,” says Denise Counce, the bank’s senior vice president and diversity and inclusion officer.
While there is progress being made, bank officials know there’s still much work to do. At the end of 2022, about 16% of TowneBank’s workforce was racially diverse, up from 15% in 2021, according to a bank proxy report.
In 2020, Newport News-based BayPort Credit Union created a DEI council “to ensure that workplace diversity and inclusion is understood,” says CEO Jim Mears. The credit union also has an employee experience specialist who runs programs in leadership development, a mentoring program and guides education sessions about personal and professional development.
BayPort’s leadership and workforce is becoming more diverse, Mears notes. The bank’s 11-member board is more than 45% racially diverse. Employees of color rose this year to 210 out of 508, or 41%, up from 163, or about 35%, in 2020. Promotions among people of color have increased as well, with more than 50% of promotions going to employees of color this year, up from 27% of 41 promotions in 2018.
Bank workers should reflect the communities they serve, says John Asbury, CEO of Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp.
Atlantic Union had a DEI program before 2020, but after George Floyd’s death, it became clear that it wasn’t enough, Asbury says, so the bank created a DEIB council (the ‘B’ is for belonging), which he chairs. The council manages the bank’s efforts to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.
Just one of Atlantic Union’s 12 directors is racially or ethnically diverse, according to its 2023 proxy statement. While the bank has not made its workforce demographics public, Asbury says it’s making progress, but acknowledges, “This is a journey.”
Virginia Business Editor Richard Foster contributed to this story.
Two Virginia business owners were among 20 women entrepreneurs chosen in June out of 6,500 applicants to participate in a 10-week accelerator sponsored by Allergan Aesthetics, the maker of Botox. Monika Jefferson, CEO and founder of the Hampton Roads-based Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs, which provides networking and resources to military spouse business owners, and Erica Cole, CEO and founder of Richmond-based adaptive clothing brand No Limbits, will each receive a $25,000 grant. The accelerator focuses on networking, social media, marketing crowdfunding and business strategies. (News release)
Alexandria-based Scout Space, a startup developing technologies for space situational awareness, closed a seed fund led by venture capital firm Decisive Point, the company announced June 21. Reston-based Noblis Inc. was the majority investor and the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. also invested. Scout Space said it could not disclose the value of the round. The company developed a sensing payload that helps spacecraft in orbit see and understand surrounding environments and has won small business innovation research contracts from the Air Force and Space Force. Since its founding in 2019, Scout Space has raised about $5.5 million in venture funding. (SpaceNews)
Reston-based Silent Push Inc. launched out of stealth mode in June with a $10 million seed round to bring its cybersecurity software to a wider market by ramping up sales and marketing hiring. The company was founded three years ago by CEO Ken Bagnall and Chief Technology Officer John Jensen to research a way to detect cyberattackers building malicious infrastructure, such as false domains or automated IP address rotation systems, and stop breaches before they happen. Boston-based Ten Eleven Ventures led the round. Silent Push has 30 employees and is fully remote. (DC Inno)
Startup Virginia received a $100,000 grant from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. in late June. The Richmond-based nonprofit, which offers founders and startups mentorship and office space, will use the grant to help its overall operations. Startup Virginia has a $950,000 annual budget and 80 members, six of which closed a Series A funding round in 2022. The organization operates the Michael Wassmer Innovation Center, also called the 1717 building, in Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom. It houses coworking space and offers programs for the entrepreneurial community. Startup Virginia also runs the Idea Factory, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs iterate and validate their ideas. (Richmond Inno)
Reston-based TruWeather Solutions raised $5.3 million, a big chunk of its $7 million Series A funding goal, by late June. TruWeather Solutions provides weather predictions and logistics data on wind speeds, temperatures and moisture data 5,000 feet above ground level, aiding companies in decisions on whether to schedule flights or drone deliveries. The round was led by Supernal, a U.S. tech innovation arm of Hyundai Motor Group that’s developing an electric takeoff and landing vehicle. Supernal invested $3.5 million and plans to pilot the weather sensor tech in its own vehicles, which it hopes to release in 2028. TruWeather plans to invest in product development and sales and increase its 30-person workforce to 35. Its customers include Walmart’s drone delivery network, run by Virginia Beach-based DroneUp LLC. (DC Inno)
Verge, a nonprofit catalyst for technology and biotech innovation in the New River Valley, Roanoke and Lynchburg regions, received a $200,000 grant from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. in late June. The grant will be used to support Verge’s Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP), which supports early-stage education and training for entrepreneurs before and after participating in the RAMP accelerator bootcamp. (News release)
HMP Properties LLC, a Venture X franchisee, has leased 18,543 square feet of space in the 555 Belaire office tower, which is part of Summit Pointe, a mixed-use development from Summit Pointe Realty LLC, a subsidiary of Fortune 500 discount retailer Dollar Tree Inc. Under development since 2018, Summit Pointe includes Dollar Tree’s corporate headquarters tower, as well as restaurants and the Mosaic, Vista and Helix apartment communities.
Sahil Patel, managing partner of HMP Properties, will oversee the buildout, opening and management of the Venture X location.
Rob Wright of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer handled leasing negotiations on behalf of Venture X, which already has locations in Richmond, Fairfax, Ashburn and Arlington.
When Summit Pointe’s three phases are completed, which includes the extension of Belaire Avenue to better connect the project with the rest of the Greenbrier district, the development is expected to include 1.75 million square feet of office and retail space plus more than 1,400 apartment units.
Charlottesville-based GW Real Estate Partners, a vertically integrated multifamily construction and development firm, and Austin, Texas-based Virtus Real Estate Capital, have broken ground on a new, $77.8 million apartment community at the entrance to North Pointe, a 224-acre mixed-use community near Rivanna Station in Albemarle County.
The Ridge at North Pointe is located across from the University of Virginia‘s North Fork Research Park, about 20 minutes north of downtown Charlottesville and 100 miles from Washington, D.C. The 279-unit community is scheduled to deliver in the second quarter of 2024.
“Charlottesville’s strong regional economy, high quality of life and the presence of the University of Virginia are consistently generating strong demand for housing in the metro,” Robert Gordon, a principal at GW Real Estate Partners, said in a statement. “With limited new apartment supply expected, The Ridge at North Pointe is poised to perform well. We look forward to offering best-in-class housing for residents in a beautiful setting with convenience to the area’s major employment centers.”
The Ridge at North Pointe will consist of seven three-story walk-up buildings situated around a central clubhouse and pool deck. One-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans will average 988 square feet and feature keyless entry, quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances and other amenities including private patios or balconies. Surface parking for 502 cars, including 14 electronic vehicle charging stations, is also included.
North Pointe’s broader community will consist of single-family, duplex/quad and apartment housing, along with retail, restaurants, office and medical office space, and a hotel to be built in phases.
The project team for The Ridge at North Pointe includes Alexandria-based Heffner Architects PC and Fairfax-based Collins Engineers Inc. GW Builders, a wholly owned subsidiary of GW Real Estate Partners, is the general contractor.
The project is GW Real Estate Partners’ second ground-up multifamily development in Virginia. The firm broke ground on the 265-unit Montage at Marquis Apartments in Williamsburg late last year. That project is scheduled to deliver in the first quarter of 2024.
A regional economic driver, Rivanna Station is a subinstallation of Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County. Three of the top military intelligence gathering agencies — the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA) — have a presence there.
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