Aimee LeWinter

Managing Director, Financial Sponsor Coverage, PNC Bank

An 11-year PNC veteran, Aimee LeWinter is responsible for delivering banking, advisory and value-added services to private equity and private credit firms, other financial sponsors and related portfolio companies across each phase of the fund life cycle. In addition to strategy and execution, LeWinter also facilitates coordination and partnership across the PNC enterprise for an enhanced client experience. 

With over 17 years of experience in the industry, she previously has served in various business development and leadership roles, most recently as senior vice president and business development officer, middle-market relationship manager and commercial banking team leader. 

LeWinter is a mentor with Women of Tomorrow, the past chair and active member of the ACG South Florida Women Connect committee and a former board member of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, Leadership Broward Foundation and Jewish Federation of Broward. She also is a past recipient of the South Florida Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40 award and the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Top Workplace Professional award. LeWinter began her undergraduate studies at Emory University and received her BSBA and MBA from the University of Florida. She is a Certified Treasury Professional. 

What advice would you offer to women just starting out in the industry?

Seek out training and continuous learning opportunities at all stages of your career. In addition to formal training programs, look for other development opportunities such as webinars, corporate learning options and project work. Become a student of your industry by staying on top of current events and understanding your customers’ needs and where you can add value. Develop your network early in your career. Internal connections can help you better understand the broader organization, provide sounding boards for new ideas and yield organic mentor relationships that will help you throughout your career. An external network also can serve many purposes, including developing prospective clients, gaining market intelligence and establishing referral sources, peer groups and mentor relationships.

What role has mentoring played in your career?

Mentoring has played a significant role in my career, as a mentor and a mentee. The mentor relationships I’ve established have helped me take ownership of my career development. In many cases, those mentors became executive sponsors who have advocated for my continued progression within the company. As a mentor, I aim to help my mentees identify their goals, strengthen their skills and prepare for their next role. I encourage them to be proactive and truly own their career development. To further support young women, I volunteer with Women of Tomorrow, whose mission is to inspire, motivate and empower at-risk young women to live up to their full potential through group mentoring.

How do you balance work/personal time? 

Work/life balance is a concept I never paid attention to until I had kids. I was proving my value early in my career and prided myself on being the hardest worker with near-perfect work. My justification was that there are 24 hours in a day, and it was okay if sleep suffered. Once I had kids, my priorities shifted. I was determined to continue to excel at work, while still spending quality time with my family. I started to work smarter and focused on the productive activities that would drive success, while minimizing the time spent on the rest. I also compartmentalized my time and scheduled both work and personal engagements, with focus on work during work time and on family during family time. While every day is not perfect, I strive for balance over a longer timeframe, such as throughout a week or a month. 

What effect, if any, has working remotely had on your career and/or your industry? What have been the challenges and how have you worked to overcome them? 

Working remotely has been surprisingly beneficial and has significantly improved my productivity at a critical time. I moved into my current role in early March 2020 to build out the national strategy and execution plan for a newer bank initiative. The role requires interacting with our deal origination teams across the Bank’s footprint, our financial sponsor relationships and virtually every line of business in the company.  Less than two weeks later, we moved to a work-from-home environment. I found that I was able to connect effectively with people via video conference and even build new foundational relationships. I also was able to cover more ground in a shorter period of time from my desk, since there wasn’t any travel or commute time. Within six months, our strategy was defined, rolled out, executed and achieving tangible results.