09-12-2021 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 46
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Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, September 12, 2021
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2021
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
SABINA
KELLY
W
hen Sabina Kelly began her career in banking, women were not commonly groomed
for a professional career. She was one of the
few offered that path when she started her
first job at Suburban Trust Company as an
assistant manager in the financial centers
and later performing credit analyses on
loan applicants.
And it was perhaps even more remarkable when she showed up at another division within Suburban’s successor bank, Maryland National, seeking employment
as a relationship manager (banking talk for someone who keeps commercial clients
personally informed on such matters as financial services and investment opportunities). The division head was shocked that she’d made an appointment to speak
with him given that there was no current opening in his office. “I’m here because
I want to work for you and if a position opens up, I want you to think of me,” she
told him. Three months later, that’s exactly what happened, and she had the job.
That combination of assertiveness and relationship building has
been a hallmark of Sabina Kelly’s
four decades in Baltimore banking. She retired in March as Greater
MarylandmarketpresidentforBank
of America, essentially the local
CEO of the region’s largest bank
and the nation’s second largest. That
achievement alone would be significant for anyone, let alone a woman
who grew up in working-class
Gardenville. After graduating from
St. Anthony of Padua, a Catholic elementary school in Northeast Baltimore, she enrolled in the
all-girls Western High School, graduating in 1975 and then attended the
University of Maryland, Baltimore
County expecting to earn a degree in
chemistry. She discovered economics and “fell in love.” Oh, and she also
met her future husband, whom she
married in 1982.
What friends and colleagues will
tell you about Ms. Kelly is, first, how
positive the second child of Ed and
Dolores Haywood is, how supportive of colleagues and clients alike,
how knowledgeable of finance and
how deeply committed to her work,
BACKGROUND
Age: 63
Education: Western High School;
B.A. in economics, University of
Maryland, Baltimore County; M.B.A,
Loyola University Maryland
Hometown: Baltimore City
Current residence: Baldwin
Career highlights: Recently
retired as Greater Maryland market
president for Bank of America,
where she served in several
senior leadership roles in global
commercial banking
Civic and charitable activities:
Served on the board of the
Economic Alliance of Greater
Baltimore, the Greater Baltimore
Committee and Dyslexia Tutoring.
Led Power of 10 groups at Bank of
America, empowering women for
success in careers and life
Family: Husband, Joe; three
children; one granddaughter
but also that she had long held the
view that she had a responsibility
of service to others that extended
far beyond banking. “Sabina is
always welcoming,” says Michelle
Whelley, president and CEO of the
Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, where Ms. Kelly served on
the governing board. “She’s always
engaged and engaging on a personal
level as well as professional. You
never get a sense that she’s too busy
to talk. She’s very accessible.”
During her 41 years at Bank of
America, Ms. Kelly worked in risk
management studying balance
sheets in addition to her time as a
relationship manager. She developed a health care specialty practice on both the national and local
level that supported hospitals, nursing homes, biotech and life science
startups, and many others. She
learned the business and learned
the company. But along the way she
also served as a mentor to countless
others, “I have mentored them even
if they didn’t want to be mentored,”
she laughs. Her goal was always to
get others to where they need to be
faster than she was able to do for
herself. And she reached out beyond
her employer to help others do the
same.
Through her work at the Greater
Baltimore Committee, Ms. Kelly
helped create the Women’s Advisory Board, which conducts regular meetings to help local employers
and their workers learn how to
attract and retain the female leaders of tomorrow. The combination
of networking, relationship building and mentoring has gotten broad
support and strong attendance over
its first three years. Even during
the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual
meetings conducted remotely
by computer videoconferencing
attracted crowds of 100 participants
or more.
“She brought years of experience and a lot of genuineness and
her ability to connect with people”
to these meetings, says Christine Aspell, managing partner of
KPMG’s Baltimore office, who
still co-chairs the board. “After I
started working with her, I felt I’d
known her forever. That’s the kind
of person she is. She’s genuine, and
she wants to help others.”
Janet Currie, who took over as
Bank of America’s Baltimore market
“She is incredibly
motivated and is willing
to take on challenges
and stand up for what
she needs to, when
she needs to, and she
does it with grace.
That’s the lesson in my
mind. How can one be
assertive and graceful
simultaneously?”
— Janet Currie, Bank of America’s
Baltimore market president
president after Sabina retired at the
end of March, marvels at Ms. Kelly’s
“passion to succeed” as well as her
passion for other women to succeed.
She was also very good at banking and was able to advance in her
career at a time when women were
badly underrepresented in the field.
“She is incredibly motivated and
is willing to take on challenges and
stand up for what she needs to,
when she needs to, and she does it
with grace,” says Ms. Currie, who
knows a few things about breaking
barriers as the first African American woman to supervise the bank’s
Maryland operations. “That’s the
lesson in my mind. How can one be
assertive and graceful simultaneously?”
Ms. Kelly has a slightly different
description of herself: “I have grit.”
Some of that probably can be credited to her parents, some perhaps
to the nuns at St. Anthony of Padua.
Although she claims to be enjoying
retirement“happily,”shealsoadmits
to looking around for opportunities
to help others. Not shareholders, not
coworkers, but, perhaps, simply to
do “good work.”
“Bankers have an opportunity
to influence a community in so
many ways,” she says. “I thoroughly
enjoyed helping other people with
their careers and their communities and really enjoyed working
with clients to help them be more
successful. I’m proud of what we
were able to accomplish. And I’m
proud to have used the opportunity
to do good things.”