🔒Vanotti guides Torrington Savings Bank into Hartford County

As she approaches the one-year anniversary of being named CEO of Torrington Savings Bank, Lesa Vanotti is overseeing the community bank’s expansion into Greater Hartford.

Torrington Savings recently opened a Bristol branch, its second in Hartford County.

“Pre-pandemic, Litchfield County, our home for over 150 years, was kind of stagnant with an outward flow of migration and not a lot of new industry or major employers coming in,” said Vanotti, who also serves as bank president. “We had a great lock on our market but there was a feeling that we had sort of tapped it out. We knew that in order to grow, we were going to have to expand geographically.”

So bank officials looked east toward Hartford County, specifically Farmington, Bristol and Plainville.

“And Bristol rose to the top of our list pretty quickly,” she said.

‘Leap of faith’

Around that time, United Bank sold to People’s United Bank so Torrington Savings was able to acquire the former United branch on Route 6 in Bristol.

“We were kind of taking a leap of faith,” Vanotti said. 

But after finding a vacant bank branch in the area where they wanted to expand, the serendipity continued as several new employees who lived or worked in the Bristol area came onboard.

Then some other larger banks announced they were closing branches, which made the timing perfect for the Bristol location.

“I could say it was genius on my part but it was luck,” Vanotti said. “We were in the right place at the right time and all the things lined up for us to be successful.”

The branch has been open only a few weeks but Vanotti said she likes what she sees.

“The Bristol market has been a home run for us,” she said. “The branch is doing very well in gathering deposits and getting a lot of inquiries so we’re very proud of that.”

Overall, bank deposits have grown from $652 million in Dec. 2019 to $792 million by the end of August 2021. Torrington Savings has $946.9 million in assets and eight branches.

Mergers open door

Torrington Savings joins a growing list of community banks that have expanded into Hartford County in recent years seeking to take advantage of industry consolidation that has seen large banks get bigger and smaller lenders disappear from the map.

Other banks that have moved into or added branches in Hartford County are Naugatuck-based Ion Bank, Norwich’s Dime Bank, Thomaston Savings Bank, Collinsville Bank and PeoplesBank of Massachusetts.

As banks enter new markets one of the biggest challenges they face is establishing brand awareness, said John Carusone, an industry consultant who runs the Bank Analysis Center in Hartford.

“When a community bank like Torrington Savings tries to break into a larger market, it’s an uphill struggle and a name-recognition challenge,” Carusone said. “There’s intense competition from other community banks in surrounding towns, and there are issues of size and scale in terms of lending limits needed to penetrate a market like Hartford.”

Banks with more branches in a particular market have an advantage over the newcomers, he added.

“When you have to roll out branch by branch to get a foothold, it’s a lot slower of a process,” Carusone said.

Not routine

Thanks to the pandemic, Vanotti’s first year as the bank’s 14th president has been anything but routine, but she credits her predecessor, John E. Janco Sr., and her fellow bank CEOs for helping her along the way.

Vanotti was named president in Jan. 2020 and added CEO to her title when Janco retired on Sept. 30, 2020.

“I took on the role [as president] and John and I had this transition plan where we were going to work on things. We had this calendar, and then it must have been around March 17, things just blew up so we threw it aside,” she said.

Vanotti and Janco shared responsibilities and relied on their fellow bankers.

“I can tell you it was a quick lesson in leadership during a crisis, and all of this schooling, all of this leadership training could not prepare any of us,” she said. “But we did what everybody else did: We leaned on each other, we leaned on our colleagues and other bank CEOs. Somehow, miraculously, we came through.”

Connecticut bank profits were down overall last year as a result of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, but Torrington Savings was still able to stay in the black, posting net income of $173,000, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.

Through the first half of 2021, Torrington Savings reported $4.7 million in profits vs. a $4.6 million loss in the year-ago period, FDIC data shows.

Torrington Savings Board Chair Edwin Booth Jr. said it’s been a pleasure to see Vanotti move up the ranks at the bank, where she’s spent most of her career.

He said a comprehensive CEO search ended with Vanotti as the top candidate.

“As a longtime trustee, it is very gratifying to watch an employee grow and excel over the years,” Booth said. “Lesa’s efforts and desire to learn led to many different promotions and groomed her skills in many different areas of banking.”

Vanotti is the first woman president in the bank’s 153-year history, but she didn’t initially like it when people stressed that fact.

“When it came out, I was adamant with everybody, please don’t put woman in the announcement. I am the 14th president of the bank,” she said. “I didn’t want them to say that because I think it perpetuates a stereotype. I am of a generation where no one ever told us we can’t do something because we’re a woman.”

But she now embraces being known as the bank’s first woman president.

“It’s given me an opportunity to be a role model, to participate in forums and talk to young women about STEM careers and getting involved in non-traditional things,” she said.

She said she tells other women that they don’t have to act like men to succeed.

“And I proved you don’t have to play golf to be a bank CEO,” she said.