Banking's newest CEO plots a revival of most unloved stock

Gunjan Kedia hopes to make US Bank into a stronger version of itself by the time it hits $700 billion of assets

- Bloomberg

Gunjan Kedia wondered why her interviewer was asking for her feelings about penguins. She'd just arrived from New Delhi to Pittsburgh for business school and hadn't yet learned the name of her new city's beloved ice hockey team. It didn't take long for her to get the lay of the land and begin rising through the finance industry. Decades later, she's at the top of it.

The new head of US Bancorp, parent of US Bank, has a chance to reinvigorate the country's fifth biggest commercial lender after it disappointed investors and analysts with lackluster returns. The bank didn't keep pace in Wall Street's all-important race to digitize banking and was on the back foot during a bout of industry turmoil as it sorted out a big deal it struck when the market had boomed. That left its stock at the bottom of a much-used industry index over the past decade. Now, with its assets approaching a threshold inviting stricter regulation, onlookers and rivals wonder if it should vault over it with a major merger.

The way she sees it, the bank is ready to thrive after its years of investments put it on stronger footing. "We've been telling that story over and over again," Kedia, 54, said in an interview. "People don't believe us very much, because you have to show the results."