Date: 8/21/2015
HOLYOKE – The PeoplesBank Board of Directors has announced the July 2016 retirement of current President and CEO Douglas A. Bowen and the appointment of Thomas W. Senecal as executive vice president (EVP) and chief operating officer.
Bowen joined PeoplesBank on Aug. 8, 1975, as a teller in the management development program. He has since worked in almost every department at the bank. In 1986, he started the Commercial Lending Department and, in 2002, was named EVP and chief lending officer.
Bowen was named president and chief executive officer (CEO) in 2007 and since that time has led the bank to its current position as the leading community bank in the market with more than $2 billion in assets and a substantial track record of innovation, community support, environmental sustainability and employee engagement.
Under Bowen’s tenure, PeoplesBank opened six branches, three of which are LEED certified, has financed more than $80 million in sustainable energy projects and has been named a “Top Place To Work” by The Boston Globe three years in a row. The bank was also named a “Top Charitable Contributor” by the Boston Business Journal seven years in a row. The American Bankers Association gave PeoplesBank a Community Commitment award for its environmental sustainability efforts in 2013. The Boston Globe also named Bowen a “Globe 100 Innovator” in 2011.
The board also announced its succession plan, which calls for Senecal to become president at the bank’s annual meeting in February 2016. Bowen will become chairman and CEO at that time. Mr. Senecal will be named president and CEO in July 2016 when Mr. Bowen retires. During this transition, Mr. Bowen will remain active in his position and the bank’s management and strategy implementation.
A resident of South Hadley, Senecal, who currently serves as EVP and chief financial officer at PeoplesBank, possesses over 25 years of progressive financial experience. In his current position, he has managed all accounting, financial reporting, and treasury and facility operations. Senecal has overseen asset growth of the bank from $460 million to $2.0 billion in 2015.
In addition to Senecal’s responsibility for the Finance Department, as the COO, he will oversee the Retail, Operations, Internal Control and Risk Oversight functions. Early next year, he will also be responsible for the Commercial and Consumer Lending, Cash Management and Human Resources functions.
Senecal holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also attended the Tuck Executive Program at Dartmouth College.
He is a Certified Public Accountant and is a United States Coast Guard veteran. Senecal currently serves on the boards of directors of Holyoke Community College, where he is Chair of the Investment Committee; Loomis Communities, Inc.; and the Hampshire Regional Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on the Advisory Council of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank – Boston advisory panel.
“Under his leadership, I am confident that our customers, our staff and our future are in very capable hands,” Bowen said in a statement on behalf of the bank’s Board of Directors. “Tom and I believe in our bank’s mutual charter. We will remain a mutual bank going forward – committed to helping our customers achieve financial success and to serving the community. It is our mutual charter that powers our values. It is also the structure that allows us to invest in innovation, to contribute to nonprofit and civic causes, to support environmental sustainability, and, perhaps most important of all, to help our associates grow and succeed. Our mutual charter has served us well for 130 years, and it is the key to our future as well.”
