New York Community Bank’s chief operating officer, Julie-Ann Signorille-Browne, has resigned, effective May 24, the bank disclosed in a filing Thursday.
In her time at NYCB, Signorille-Browne led the bank’s integration with Flagstar and, later, the integration of assets and liabilities NYCB bought from the failed Signature Bank, according to a biography on the company’s website.
Signorille-Browne came to NYCB in September 2021 from Citizens Bank, where she served as chief operating officer of consumer banking, according to her LinkedIn profile. But she cut her teeth in combining banks’ assets when she worked as a merger integration executive during KeyBank’s 2016 purchase of First Niagara Bank.
NYCB’s rapid growth — it bought pieces of Signature less than five months after regulators approved its acquisition of Flagstar — has drawn flak from lawmakers who argue Office of the Comptroller of the Currency examiners should have been paying closer attention to the bank as it surpassed the $100 billion-asset threshold.
Early this year, NYCB was seen as the most at-risk bank over its exposure to commercial real estate. The bank disclosed a surprise $252 million loss in January, spurring the bank’s stock to drop precipitously. That, in turn, ushered in a makeover in management.
The bank’s then-CEO, Thomas Cangemi, resigned in February, when the bank amended its fourth-quarter results to include a $2.4 billion goodwill impairment charge. Cangemi’s replacement, NYCB’s then-Executive Chair Alessandro DiNello, hired a new risk chief and audit executive. (The previous occupants of those roles had left before NYCB issued its fourth-quarter earnings — which drew more criticism of the bank.)
But the makeover hit a higher gear in March, when a group of investors, led by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, gave NYCB a $1.05 billion cash infusion. The investors repopulated NYCB’s board and installed former Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting as the bank’s third CEO of the young year.
Signorille-Browne’s departure is just the latest among a raft of executive changes this year. NYCB last month hired a new CFO, general counsel and head of commercial real estate lending.
In her role as COO, Signorille-Browne is responsible for human resources and technology, retail and commercial deposits and lending, corporate real estate, sourcing and vendor management, and the enterprise program management office, according to her NYCB bio.
