Truist Financial's New Leadership and Community Support Initiatives

Vision of New Leadership

Truist Financial's new leadership is focused on driving growth through strategic hires in the payments business and investing in talent across product, sales, and servicing areas, reflecting a comprehensive vision for future expansion and innovation.

"And finally, we made new key leadership hires within our payments business during the quarter as this is an area where we see significant opportunity for growth over time." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"We've invested in talent. We have new leadership around sort of the overall business itself, around product, around sales, servicing." --- (TFC, conference, 2024/06/11)

Existing Community Support Initiatives

Truist Financial's existing community support initiatives include grants to 17 community organizations across 54 communities in 13 states, strategic investments in nonprofits focused on economic mobility and small business growth, and the Inspire Awards collaboration with MIT's Solve initiative to support diverse small business owners.

"There are 17 community organizations receiving grants that will be used to support efforts in 54 communities across 13 states and allow local non-profit organizations to better respond to critical community needs within their states." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"The Foundation, an endowed private foundation established in 2020 whose operating budget is independent of Truist Financial Corporation, makes strategic investments in a wide variety of nonprofit organizations centered around two focus areas: building career pathways to economic mobility and strengthening small businesses to ensure all communities have an equal opportunity to thrive." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/04/25)

"The foundation, an endowed private foundation established in 2020 whose operating budget is independent of Truist Financial Corporation, makes strategic investments in a wide variety of nonprofit organizations centered around two focus areas: building career pathways to economic mobility and strengthening small businesses to ensure all communities have an equal opportunity to thrive." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/08/07)

""The support from the Truist Foundation Inspire Awards will enable us to make investments in engineering, marketing and new team members who will help us provide innovative solutions to the barriers that so many entrepreneurs face—in languages that are familiar to them and with a cultural relevancy that is critical to helping diverse small business owners thrive." Truist Foundation collaborated with Solve, an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to help identify nonprofits with technology-based ideas to help support, grow and develop small businesses in underserved communities and create lasting change." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/04/25)

"I can say that I'm encouraged that much of the profitability improvement potential we are working towards is centered on further deepening of existing client relationships in verticals and product lines that already exist at Truist. We have great confidence in our ability to further penetrate our existing client base, grow our core banking business, and help new and existing clients achieve financial success by delivering our commercial, consumer, payments, investment banking, and wealth platform, given the ongoing investments through our existing footprint in specialty areas." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)

Strategic Goals Behind Initiatives

Truist Financial's strategic goals focus on future positioning, resuming meaningful and durable programs, supporting small business owners, and leveraging a stronger balance sheet for capital deployment and share repurchases. These initiatives aim to enhance client experiences and ensure long-term sustainability.

"So from a strategic framework, we said, okay, we actually have to think about that and we sort of have to make sure that we position it for the future." --- (TFC, conference, 2024/05/30)

"Mike Maguire: Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin discussing our second quarter results, I'd like to spend a few moments recapping the strategic actions that significantly impacted our second quarter results." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)

"But our goal is to resume a program that's both meaningful and durable. Before I hand the call over to Mike to discuss our financial performance in more detail, I want to provide a quick update on the progress we're making and improving experiences for our clients, which we see on slide seven." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

""Running a small business is no small feat, which is why at Truist we're focused on caring for our small business owners so they can continue doing what they do best." Businesses have ambitious goals, struggle with long-term strategy due to short-term challenges. Despite the optimistic outlook and growth goals for the future, most small business owners have been too occupied with managing short term challenges to prioritize business planning, with only 35% reporting having a formal growth plan in place." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/05/01)

"In addition, our significantly stronger balance sheet will be positioned to weather an even wider range of economic environments, while also giving us the unique ability to evaluate a variety of capital deployment opportunities post-closing, including a potential balance sheet repositioning and resuming meaningful share repurchases later in the year." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

Financial Investments in Community Support

Truist Financial Corporation is dedicated to inspiring and building better lives and communities through its purpose-driven initiatives. Their investments extend beyond business operations to encompass broader community support, reflecting a holistic approach to fostering community well-being.

"About TruistTruist Financial Corporation is a purpose-driven financial services company committed to inspiring and building better lives and communities." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/04/23)

"A replay of the call will be available on the website for 30 days. About Truist Truist Financial Corporation is a purpose-driven financial services company committed to inspiring and building better lives and communities." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/04/22)

"About Truist Truist Financial Corporation is a purpose-driven financial services company committed to inspiring and building better lives and communities." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/08/08)

"About Truist Truist Financial Corporation is a purpose-driven financial services company committed to inspiring and building better lives and communities." --- (TFC, press release, 2024/07/23)

"And so think about the amount of clients in our commercial business that are now private equity-owned and our capability to be relevant in those discussions and help them along that flight path. So investment is not just in the business itself, but it's in everything that surrounds the business and in support of." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)

Community Impact and Outcomes

Truist Financial is committed to deploying capital with a focus on long-term positive impacts, including a $1 billion donation aimed at funding nursing schools, which could significantly benefit communities.

"We're going to move with pace to deploy our capital, improve our returns, but we're not going to be in a rush to leverage capital to meet short-term expectations that do not have long term positive impact on our company, clients, and shareholders." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)

"This #AAPIHeritageMonth, we’re saying thank you to organizations making an impact in communities, like @APIA_Scholars." --- (WFC, Twitter, 2024/05/03)

"But the $1B he’s donating could generate exponentially more impact by funding the creation of multiple nursing schools at state universities and even community colleges across the US." --- (TFC, twitter, 2024/07/09)

Challenges and Opportunities

Truist Financial is leveraging growth opportunities in its markets and industry verticals, showing proactive momentum. The new leadership is focused on disciplined investments and expanding relationships, while the existing team is effectively meeting challenges and collaborating with the commercial team.

"So if we see the investments that we're making, better growth opportunities in our markets, we're going to take advantage of that." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)

"So we'll continue to pursue opportunities in our markets and through our industry verticals and we've got good momentum in that front." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"And not only is it there when we turn the page, it's better than we thought it was, but opportunities for to expand the relationships to places where we created symmetry and we didn't have overlap, all that's there." --- (TFC, conference, 2024/05/30)

"So we're going to calibrate that against our growth opportunities and where we see an ability to invest in our franchise and we're going to be disciplined about it." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)

"You know, our existing team has really set horizon to the challenge. They're working really great with the commercial team." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

Future Plans and Innovations

Truist Financial's future plans include a consistent share repurchase strategy, optimism for long-term returns, and a modernized digital onboarding experience for small businesses, enhancing application completion rates and digital engagement. Additionally, potential impacts of Basel III on decision-making and restructuring are being considered.

"consistent share repurchase plan. So it's a combination of all those things factored into the equation, which give us, as I said before a lot of optimism about being able to improve those returns short-term, importantly, but most importantly over the long-term." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"But can you touch the held-to-maturity portfolio as well? And then second, if this Basel III, as we know appears to be delayed because of a big change coming, if Basel III doesn't get solidified and finalized until first or second quarter of next year, how does that impact your guys' decision-making on when to possibly do this restructuring?" --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q1)

"A new more modernized small-business digital onboarding experience has also resulted in new high in application completion rates, while we're also seeing increased digital engagement with our small-business clients." --- (TFC, earning call, 2024/Q2)