Contributed Photo
Incoming CEO Frank.
Yale has a new leader. The Board of Ed has a new leader. New Haven’s getting a new leader. And now New Haven’s community development bank is getting a new leader, too.
That’s according to an announcement made Wednesday afternoon by START Community Bank, the three-year-old locally-focused institution on Grand and Whalley Avenues that sprang up in the wake of the decision by the old New Haven Savings Bank to go public.
Bank CEO and President Willaim Placke announced that he will retire by year’s end. Placke spent six years working first, on behalf of the not-for-profit First City Fund Corporation, to form the bank, and then to get it off the ground.
The bank’s board has approved Maureen A. Frank as Placke’s replacement as president and CEO. She will immediately start working in that role on an acting basis as Placke helps her with the transition.
Come Jan. 1, she will not only have the job officially, she will have a new executive vice-president working alongside her: John DeStefano. DeStefano announced earlier this year that he would move to the post upon his Jan. 1 retirement as mayor of New Haven. DeStefano is as responsible as anyone else in town for the creation of START Bank: As mayor he negotiated with the state and with leaders of the bank that took over the old New Haven Savings to set aside the money to create a new community financial institution devoted to small-business lending, mortgages, and financial literacy and capacity-building within city limits. Click here to read about DeStefano’s decision to move over to work at the bank full-time.
The bank currently had $54.4 million in assets as of the end of September.
Placke (pictured) told the Independent Thursday that he is proud of the work he did in building the bank. He is ready to retire, while continuing to volunteer for local causes and “earn the title of ‘Number One Grandfather.’”
In a press release, bank board Chair Rolan Joni Young Smith called Placke “the driving force that turned the concept of a community development bank not only dedicated to the growth of businesses, but also instrumental in encouraging families to build wealth through savings, into a brick and mortar reality.”
Incoming CEO Frank previously served as president and CEO of Cheshire-based Apple Valley Bank & Trust.