The first female CEO of a top U.S. bank talks solutions to finance’s gender pay gap

When Beth Mooney entered banking in 1977, the only job she could get was as a secretary.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas, Mooney said the only thing managers in finance wanted to know was how fast she could type. They told her multiple times that she wouldn’t make it in divisions like corporate banking or real estate. Why? Women were just not allowed. But that didn’t stop her from applying, sometimes even begging, to be given an opportunity.

“My career took many twists and turns,” said Mooney, now the CEO of KeyCorp, a role she assumed in 2011, becoming the first female CEO of a top 20 U.S. bank. “That triggered in me something that became a hallmark in my career… you can never tell me what I can’t do because that is what I am going to set my sights on.”

Mooney’s career up the corporate ladder in finance was an unconventional one, but one that many young women in the industry are watching closely. Fewer than 17% of senior leaders in investment banking are women and just 30% of executives in commercial banking are female, according to data from Catalyst. That makes Mooney not just a rarity, but a role model.

In response to a recent LinkedIn survey in partnership with CNBC on the state of gender in the finance industry, I asked Mooney to respond to the key findings. While she is confident that the road to the top will be easier for the next generation, she has a few lessons that she thinks are relevant to the next generation.

Edited excerpts:

Caroline Fairchild: The recently disclosed gender pay gap among financial companies in the U.K. remains in the news. What should we be doing about this issue in the U.S.?

Beth Mooney: As leaders of companies, we have an obligation to review our pay data in a way where we can get into enough detail to do something about it and close the gap. That is incredibly important. As we get all of our various compensation reports that we do, [we need to] slice it by a million different ways, but we need to do it so that we look for disparity in pay for [diverse groups] and for females. We just have to say that it is unacceptable. If someone is making X and someone else is making Y and they are doing the same job, you put the other person on a path to make sure that you close the gap. I have done things where I have cut the bonus pool for people and held out money so that we then turn around and make sure we us it to bring parity to diverse populations. It’s almost like, if you won’t do it with your money, I’ll do it with my own. Things like that set the tone.

CF: You started out as a bank secretary. What do you attribute to your success?

BM: Tenacity. I had been a secretary for about a year, applied to bank training programs and was getting turned down. I got the opportunity to interview with a Dallas-based bank and I was very tenacious with the head of the training program… I entered into a multi-hour interview where I begged, I bickered and I tried everything I know how to convince this gentleman to hire me. I was so determined because I had finally gotten in front of someone who is at a training program. I wasn’t going to say no as an answer.

CF: So what kept you going?

BM: What kept me going was I loved the work. Once I got into banking, I found that I always found what was my calling and my career. I always liked the work and liked the people. I liked that banking deals with people and their finances and helping them with their businesses. I think there was a pride that came with showing that you could do it in a world where the expectation was that you weren’t and wouldn’t. It was a little bit of constantly beating the odds. I didn’t think of it in a negative sense, I didn’t allow myself to think of it that way. But I was conscious of the fact that I was trailblazing. There was an almost a competitive steak and spirit in me about that.

CF: How do you think you got into that role and the roles that came after them?

BM: One of the things I also did is I took a lot of risks. I moved nine times in 16 years. If there was a tough assignment or something needed to get turn around, I was one of those people who would embrace those opportunities. That was part of my trailblazing and making a way. There is a lot written about women playing it safe and being less willing to take stretch assignments. I was one of those people who was always willing to step up, stretch and it was one part desire to do well and succeed and another part a bit of a burning ambition to get ahead. And learning to wear that and balance that was very interesting because I do believe women have a higher bar when it comes to wearing ambition before it becomes off putting.

CF: One of the main findings of our survey is that female senior leaders in finance aren’t confident that younger women will have it much easier than they did. How do we change that?

BM: I am in the optimistic camp. In my experience, you were constantly getting somewhere against the odds and I do think the world has changed. The notion of diversity and inclusion has come along way. People actively run our businesses who want to see diverse talent be promoted and succeed and want to build a culture that is inclusive of people’s differences so they can also bring their best self [to work.] I always felt like in some ways, I was trying to be something that I was supposed to be to get ahead. As my career progressed, I could be more myself and I think I got to be my better self… I don’t think that we have eliminated the barriers, or that it is something that will happen without nurturing or intention, but it certainly different than when I came up.

CF: Members are also saying that mentorship is key. What are your thoughts on how to use mentorship to support younger women?

BM: [Mentorship] is what you do purposefully, but also there is a little bit of needing to change the lens of what people view mentorship to be. On the purposeful side at KeyCorp, among our employee affiliation groups, probably our biggest, strongest and most developed is our Key Executive Women’s Network… When I talk about changing the lens on what mentoring is, I think we have created a parlance where mentoring is something with a person and it is something specific and it happens with some frequency and intervals around certain topics. But to me, if I look over time, mentoring can be in the moment and mentoring can have a short-life span… There is so much to be gleaned from considering every encounter that you can as an opportunity to garner insights and have someone turn the mirror on you and help you develop.

CF: So what’s your biggest piece of advice for young women just starting out in finance?

BM: Women have a hard time asking for what they are worth and asking for a raise. I do think there is something where, to the extent that we have these networking programs, we need to help coach people to understand how they can play a role and be more vocal on their own behalf for their own compensation and expectation. As a female, that was something I always had a hard time doing. I used to believe that if I did a good job, it would eventually all catch up.

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