New York lender First Niagara Financial Group, which recently acquired Connecticut’s NewAlliance Bank, has installed a senior credit officer whom it says will be New England’s voice in loan decisions.
Former Wells Fargo & Co. banker Patricia S. Gaudreau was named to the newly created post of senior vice president/senior credit manager for First Niagara’s New England Region, effective Tuesday. She is based in the bank’s downtown New Haven offices.
The bank says Gaudreau, who will oversee commercial and business banking underwriting activities in New England, is its answer to complaints from Connecticut political and business leaders that its $1.5 billion buyout of NewAlliance in April would deaden its local sensitivity to borrowers’ needs.
Gaudreau was with Wells Fargo and its regional predecessors — Union Trust Co., First Fidelity Bank, First Union National Bank and Wachovia Bank — where she served since 1986 as a senior loan officer and/or branch manager.
Gaudreau earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Southern Connecticut State University and MBA with a concentration in Econometrics and Forecasting from the University of New Haven.
