Women in Banking
Laurie Stewart CEO, Sound Community Bank Sequim, Washington
By Evan Sparks
Not far from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Washington state and British Columbia, the town of Sequim features a dynamic female leader: Sound Community Bank and its CEO, Laurie Stewart. A trailblazer for women in banking in Washington state, one of American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Banking and now chair of the ABA, Stewart had a winding path to leadership — one forged by determination, generosity, openness to opportunity and a widening circle of family.
An accidental banker While family has always come first for Stewart, banking was something she fell into accidentally. It was on Whidbey Island that she first got the idea that banking coud be more than just a job. She moved up the ranks to head teller, branch operations supervisor and the loan desk. She hit her first barrier when she asked to be promoted to an officer of the bank. There was only one female bank officer in that location, and her boss told her that she shouldn’t wait to fill her shoes — the incumbent would have the job until she dies. Stewart chuckles as she recalls the conversation. “It’s really good I took his advice, because Jo Balda worked until she was 85, “ she says. “If I’d been waiting around for Jo’s job, I’d still be in Oak Harbor.”
“...banking is a fabulous career and a noble profession... We need to do a better job helping our communities know the difference banks made.” Laurie Stewart 36
The Arkansas Banker n Winter 2019
Meanwhile Stewart learned all she could about banking completing her degree part-time. Her boss got her into a class for commercial lending officers by a ruse, knowing they wouldn’t welcome a woman as a student, she recalls. “He called the head office in Everett and said, ‘There are a bunch of us commercial lenders who have to go to this class for 10 weeks straight. We need someone to take notes.’” Stewart then became a bank examiner, putting 80,000 miles on her car doing community bank examinations for two years. By then, banks had begun to hire what she call “token women,” and “I had skills that a lot of other women didn’t.” She returned to the Everett bank as an officer, becoming the first female VP there. She later joined a California-based thrift and rose to become its first female SVP. In 1989, while she was casting about for her next step, a recruiter called her about an opening at a $38 million-asset institution in Seattle. “What do you know about credit unions?” he asked.
