Valley National Bank, the wholly owned subsidiary of Valley National Bancorp, announced the promotion of Russell Barrett to Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Operations Officer (COO).

Barrett joined Valley in 2021 and served as the Chief Transformation Officer the past two years, overseeing the Bank’s enterprise change and transformation efforts and leading Valley’s successful core conversion initiative this past year.

Prior to that, Barrett led Bank Leumi USA’s technology and strategic digital transformation efforts as CIO. He also spent 22 years at BNP Paribas where he served in a variety of management roles including Chief Information Officer, and subsequently Chief Operating Officer for the Corporate Bank, where he held responsibility for technology, middle/back office, credit risk control, and data management. He later headed up Client Management activities with responsibility of the full client lifecycle for the Americas and was the Head of Change and Solutions which consisted of the entire portfolio of strategy and transformation resources.

As Valley’s new COO, Barrett will play a critical role working with Valley’s senior executive leadership team to deliver the bank’s strategic vision. He will focus on driving customer centricity, improving service delivery and efficiency, and fostering innovation to support the bank in operating with the right balance of quality, flexibility, control, and cost. In addition to these responsibilities, Barrett will continue to lead Valley’s digital transformation projects and all technology and operations-based aspects of the bank, including deposit and commercial services, loan operations, and workplace solutions.

“Russ is an invaluable member of our senior executive leadership team and brings a fresh and invigorating perspective to all aspects of our strategic vision,” remarked Valley Bank CEO Ira Robbins. “As we move forward as one of the premier relationship-based banks in the country, Russ will play an integral role in driving growth and scale during a period of historic change at Valley.”

“Russ has an impressive track record of driving transformational change, steering complex operations and delivering impactful results,” said Valley Bank President Tom Iadanza. “We are confident that in this new role he will help ensure that we deliver on our customer, associate, community and shareholder commitments.”