PNC’s new president tasked with helping bank scale

PNC Financial Services Group has tapped former BlackRock executive Mark Wiedman to be its new president, tasked with helping the bank prepare for “significant opportunity to scale,” even as tariffs rattle the financial world and the threat of a recession looms.

The seventh-largest bank in the country is poised to take on even more consolidation — organically or inorganically — and plans to lean further into technology and products. PNC said Monday that Wiedman, who spent the last 20 years building and managing businesses at BlackRock, will help the Pittsburgh-based bank take advantage of chances to grow and improve.

PNC “thrives in periods of distress and disruption,” Wiedman told American Banker on Tuesday, noting that further economic disruption is “quite possible.” He said the $560 billion-asset bank’s management of its balance sheet and credit risk has put it in a position to take strategic risk when there are shifts in the industry.

“Opportunity favors the prepared mind, so I think PNC is in a great position in the event of more market disruption,” Wiedman said. “When things get a little messier, that’s when PNC can actually move. So that is exciting for me, in terms of what I’m going to be coming here to do.”

The new president will report directly to CEO Bill Demchak, 62, and will oversee the bank’s primary operating lines of business and the regional presidents.

PNC has been expanding in recent years — acquiring BBVA USA in 2021 to grow market share in the South and Southeast, and said last year that it would spend some $1.5 billion on branch growth and renovation. The bank has also leaned into payments technology, and Demchak has repeatedly opined on the competitive advantages of scale.

“Banking today is nothing like your father’s bank — not even close,” Demchak said in a prepared statement Monday. “Mark brings deep experience from a fast-moving, tech-forward, consolidating industry that aligns perfectly with where we are headed, and which is why Mark is the right fit for this role.”

Wiedman has worn a number of hats throughout his career, including serving at the Treasury Department, helping to found mortgage bank PennyMac Financial Services during the financial crisis while working at BlackRock and managing the iShares business at the firm from 2011 to 2019.

But Wiedman said not to read into his appointment as a huge shift in strategy. He said PNC won’t ditch its long-time commitment to being a “national Main Street bank.”

The bank’s hiring of Wiedman, 54, also fills a gap left three months ago by the previous president, Michael Lyons, who split from the bank less than a year after being named to the role. Lyons’ promotion last February had seemingly set him up as Demchak’s successor, until January, when he joined Fiserv as CEO in a move Piper Sandler analyst Scott Siefers described at the time as “a loss for PNC.”

Siefers said in a Monday note that he sees the announcement of Wiedman joining PNC as a “positive.”

“It further seems, in our view, to set him up as the eventual successor to Mr. Demchak, which likely ‘solves’ what had been an uncharacteristic open question about succession at the company,” Siefers said.

Siefers added, though, that he expects Demchak will stay on for a few more years in his current role. Wiedman affirmed that Demchak wasn’t going anywhere soon in a Tuesday email to American Banker, writing, “Bill has more he wants to do and I have more to learn.”

From BlackRock to Steel City

The road to Wiedman becoming PNC president started in London.

Wiedman was walking down Dean Street in Soho a few months ago when he got an unexpected call from Demchak. The two had worked together in various capacities for two decades but weren’t collaborating on anything at the time. Wiedman had announced just days prior that he was leaving the biggest investment firm in the country, where he had been viewed as a possible successor to CEO Larry Fink.

In a LinkedIn post explaining his departure, Wiedman said he wanted to “return to [his] entrepreneurial roots.”

“I’ll be taking the time, at least through the summer, to sort out what that next thing is,” he wrote in the post. “Probably in finance, probably global, definitely entrepreneurial, and I can only hope as much fun as the past 20 years.”

But when Demchak asked during that phone call if PNC could be an option, Wiedman said yes.

“I think the industry is going to look very different in five to 10 years, and I think PNC is in a position to win in that change,” Wiedman said. “That’s what I told him that day, and everything I’ve learned since then has confirmed that.”

Demchak had served on BlackRock’s board until 2020, when the bank sold its 22% stake in the asset manager, so the two had gotten to know each other through those years.

Wiedman also knew he could work well with Demchak, a known steady hand in the industry who’s grown PNC into a national franchise. The industry veterans first met 20 years ago when Demchak, then-chief financial officer at the bank, hired Wiedman, who was part of BlackRock’s capital markets and balance sheet advisory business for banks, to help assess the returns of the PNC’s investment portfolio.

That project marked Wiedman’s first trip to Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, he said he had just signed a contract for a house in the Steel City.

Wiedman will be paid an annual base salary of $700,000, plus a $1 million signing bonus and relocation benefits. He will also receive a one-time award of $3.1 million in equity to vest over three years, along with performance-related stocks of up to $2 million to vest in 2028, subject to continued employment and satisfaction of certain performance metrics. Wiedman is also eligible to participate in the incentive award plan. For 2025, his prorated target is $7.4 million, composed of cash and equity.