SEATTLE — Laurie Stewart, CEO of Sound Community Bank, worked her way up during a time when women had few opportunities in banking.
Even now, only 7 percent of the publicly traded banks in the country are headed by women, she said in a recent interview.
“One of the real challenges in our industry, and it’s true of other industries too, boards are comfortable with the CEO looking and acting and connecting like they do, and boards have been predominately white men. It’s hard to break in,” she said.
“Until our boards become more diverse and have stronger participation, it’s hard to get in.”
Stewart accepted the Rick Caps Award on Saturday at the Harvest of Hope gala in Sequim.
Her parents, Duke and Mary Lou Teitzel, moved from Port Angeles to Sequim when she was 3. The town had one stoplight. When she graduated from Sequim High School, her class had 86 students.
“The Irrigation Fest will always be a super memory,” she said, telling of her parents chairing the festival and her father flying an airplane over the logging show.
She took a job as a teller while she was a freshman at the University of Washington.
She didn’t think she would be a banker. She was interested in theater arts and thought she’d get a teaching degree.
But after several years, she found she liked the work and told her manager she’d like to become a bank officer.
“He said, ‘We only have one female bank officer in the entire bank. You will have to wait until she retires,’” Stewart said in an interview last week. “It’s really good I didn’t wait. She worked until she was in her mid-80s.”
Stewart, now 75, took another job to continue to aim for her goal. She eventually became the first woman vice president of Great Western Bank in Bellevue and, 34 years ago, was hired as Sound Community Bank’s first woman CEO.
At the time, the bank had $38 million in assets, she said. During her tenure, total assets have grown to nearly $1.5 billion.
Stewart has been named by American Banker as among the most powerful women in banking since 2017. She was one of 14 bankers asked to serve on the inaugural FDIC Community Bank Advisory Board.
She has served two terms as chair of the Washington Bankers Association and also chaired the American Bankers Association.
In 2017, she was one of nine community bankers invited to the White House for a listening session with the president.
In 2019, Seattle Business Magazine recognized her as an Executive of Excellence. In 2018, she was named Community Banker of the Year — a national recognition. In 2021, the Puget Sound Business Journal named her one of the Power 100.
Among these and other responsibilities, she had undertaken to honor a promise made to her husband before his death to take care of college tuition for their nieces and nephews, a number that now reaches 11.
Stewart said she finds the top attribute in a great banker is empathy.
“You need to be able to walk a mile in the shoes of your clients and your workers to really understand their needs to help them reach their goals,” she said.
“If you can’t empathize, it’s hard to be able to provide the services that person really needs.”
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Leah Leach is a former executive editor of Peninsula Daily News.
