Truist’s new CEO begins makeover with consumer business

• Key insight: Six weeks into his tenure, Truist CEO Mike Lyons is installing new leadership of the consumer banking business and selling a direct-to-consumer lending platform.
• What’s at stake: Lyons’ arrival marks a fresh start for Truist, which has struggled to meet the financial goals and expectations it set when it was created in 2019 by a merger of equals.

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Six weeks into its new CEO’s tenure, Truist Financial is making more big changes.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company on Friday announced a shakeup of its high-level leadership ranks, along with a plan to sell its direct-to-consumer personal loan business.

The regional bank said it has hired two new executives to oversee consumer banking and small business banking, a move designed to increase accountability in each of those segments, and that the previous head of consumer and small-business banking is leaving the company.

Truist also said it reached an agreement this week to sell nearly all of the assets of LightStream, the unsecured lending platform it acquired in 2012, to Carlyle Group. The deal, which includes $7.7 billion of non-core loans, is expected to close by year-end and generate $7.2 billion of net proceeds. The bank said it plans to use the proceeds to repay wholesale borrowings.

Truist CEO Michael Lyons, the former president of PNC Financial Services Group and former CEO of Fiserv, joined the company on Sept. 1. He succeeded Bill Rogers, who’d been on the job for nearly five years. Rogers is now Truist’s executive chair and plans to fully retire from Truist in April 2027.

During Lyons’ first month in the CEO seat, Truist announced plans to exit the near-prime auto lending business. The $550 billion-asset bank said in September that it would sell $5.5 billion of auto loans, essentially clearing out all the assets of the Regional Acceptance Corp., its auto-lending subsidiary.

That deal has since closed, and the bank used the proceeds to repay $5.2 billion of wholesale borrowings, Truist said.

The shift away from certain consumer lending products began before Lyons’ arrival. In July, Truist said it would stop originating marine and recreational vehicle loans.

As part of the leadership changes announced Friday, Truist said that Dontá Wilson, who has been Truist’s chief consumer and small business banking officer, will leave the bank. The company did not provide a timeline for Wilson’s exit.

Meanwhile, D. Steve Boland, the former chief administrative officer at Bank of America, is joining Truist as vice chair, Truist said in a press release. Boland, who retired from BofA last year, was president of retail banking before he was promoted to chief administrative officer.

Shimna Sameer, another longtime BofA executive, will become Truist’s chief consumer banking officer. Sameer, who was hired earlier this year to lead Truist’s wealth management business and was set to join the bank this month, will now oversee the bank’s efforts to grow core deposits, deepen primary banking relationships and improve the client experience.

Jeff Warner is coming on board to serve as chief small business banking officer. Warner most recently served as head of small business at Pittsburgh-based PNC.

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Boland, Sameer and Warner will report directly to Lyons.

“We have tremendous strengths, including deep client relationships, an attractive branch footprint, talented teammates and businesses with significant potential. These leaders have demonstrated track records driving growth and operational excellence,” Lyons said in the release.

Lyons was named president of PNC in 2024. Less than a year into that role, he was named president and CEO-elect of Fiserv, where he worked to bring the company up to speed with new technologies such as stablecoins and agentic AI.