Ernesto Soler Email & Phone Number

New York, Ny, Us

Popular Community Bank is a US Bank Holding Company and ranks among the largest 100 commercial banks in the US. It operates through its two main subsidiaries, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico and Popular Bank. The bank maintains operations in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and mainland US, with assets in excess of $48B.Transferred back to New York from Chicago to improve both revenue and operational efficiencies for the back-office through the efforts of 250 employees within accounting, strategy, branch administration, loan and deposit operations, call center, facilities, products and digital strategy. Member of the Corporate Benefits Committee. Enhancing Technology to Improve Service Delivery: Planned and participated in a branch transformation strategy that introduced digital technologies into the branches. Redesigned and reworked branch layouts to improve service. Lowering Costs and Improving Profitability: Reduced costs by relocating and consolidating back-office functions at a corporate level. Dramatically increased profitability while doubling balance sheet. Providing Strategies for Future Growth: Provided updates and presented US strategies at the annual board of directors’ retreat.

New York, Ny, Us

Served as de facto Chief Financial Officer, Member of the ALCO Committee for US operations and of the Bank’s Pricing Committee. Held authority for finance department functions including financial and regulatory reporting, general accounting, forecasting, budgeting and strategic planning.  Providing Effective Change and Crisis Management: Directed year-long restructuring of US operations – considered the most critical initiative following the 2008 financial crisis. Relocated and consolidated entire back-office operation from Chicago to Puerto Rico, while corporate headquarters relocated to New York City. Building High-Performance Teams and Organizations: Hired and trained new staff in Puerto Rico, while retaining staff in Chicago for knowledge transfer purposes. Actively assisted 350+ employees in identifying new job opportunities.

New York, Ny, Us

Planned and directed the relocation of controller unit from New York to Chicago, while ensuring operational continuity. Concurrently vetted all monthly, quarterly and yearly close processes, as well as the preparation of financial and management reports, procedures and variance analysis. Coordinated general accounting, accounts payable, governmental reporting, balancing and internal reporting functions.  Effectively Managing Change: Completed transfer within six months, with minimal disruptions or turnovers.

New York, Ny, Us

Provided inspirational leadership to a team of 18 professionals during an extremely volatile economic and regulatory period. Closely monitored the balancing and proofing of all bank applications, updated forecasts, and analyzed new business opportunities. Improving Expense Management to Enhance Profitability: Headed implementation of organizational profitability model for the allocation of noninterest expense items to better assess the institution’s operational profitability, as well as the independent lines of business. Driving Change to Weather an Economic Storm: Expertly navigated regulators’ demands to sell off and rapidly shrink the bank by one third, in the wake of the financial crisis. Modeled and implemented controls, while interacting with regulators to ensure compliance.

Relocated to Chicago to direct a group tasked with measuring and increasing profitability of the bank, through sales measurement, efficiency projects and funding optimization. Improving Key Processes: Selected, developed and implemented automated reporting for over 1,000 profit and cost centers. Rolled out a major incentive plan based on profitability and volume targets. Enhancing Service Delivery and Productivity: Reduced staff 30% through the development and implementation of branch staffing and scheduling model.

Recruited out of college, sponsored for MBA, and progressed to Second VP and VP. Planned and directed the consolidation of all US operations under one bank charter following the partial repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.  Driving Change to Improve Performance: Directed a task force of 50 employees that consolidated nine bank charters, with 151 branches and 1,500 employees, into one legal entity with $14B in assets, under one regulatory, accounting and processing system in only two years.

Bs, Finance

Mba, Finance