Susanna Siskind

Operations Group Manager, PNC Business Credit

40 Under 40 Category: Operations

Biography:

Susanna is currently the operations group manager for PNCBC, in charge of all aspects of its Operations Group nationwide.  For the past 2.5 years, she has devoted the majority of her attention to the successful conversion/replacement of PNCBC’s internal and customer facing collateral and loan monitoring system. During this time, Susanna led the team from concept to full implementation of the new system, which included: identifying MIS business requirements, design, mapping of information, testing and validation, report creation, customer and internal training development and facilitation and communications.  Susanna directed PNC Business Credit’s six-month pilot and its full system conversion.  Throughout the pre-and post-conversion, she made a conscious effort to set aside time to talk directly to PNC’s borrowers in order to address any specific questions to help ensure a seamless transition.  Susanna’s team is responsible for continuing to refine and enhance the customer and internal experience.

Over the course of Susanna’s 17-year career, she has served in various roles, gaining experience in field exam, relationship management, underwriting, mezzanine finance and workout.  She started her career as a field examiner in the training program at Mellon Business Credit (now part of BofA) and subsequently with PNCBC.  In less than six months after joining PNCBC as a field examiner in 2002, she was promoted to a relationship manager for PNCBC’s Exit/Workout portfolio, where she managed over 30 borrowers that were in turnaround or federal or state bankruptcy.  After less than two years as a relationship manager in workout, Susanna took on her first major project at PNCBC, working closely with a third-party vendor for two years developing a custom Field Exam software that PNCBC’s Field Examination Department continues to utilize today on over 2,500 exams annually. This was a tremendous enhancement from the previous legacy excel-based product that lacked sophistication and consistency and varied from region to region.  Subsequent to the completion of the project was completed, Susanna took on a relationship manager role in PNCBC’s Mezzanine Finance group which included broad product offering of Unitranche, Cash Flow, Term B and turnaround transactions.  Over the course of her five-plus years in the role her portfolio reported zero credit losses despite the challenging economic times.  Prior to taking on her current role, Susanna was a field exam manager in Chicago for three years, responsible for both new and recurring business for the Chicago and Mid-Atlantic markets during which she managed a team of 10 examiners. 

When informed she had been chosen as one of SFNet’s 40 Under 40, Susanna said, “This award is validation that the hard work and dedication that I have devoted to my career and employer is acknowledged and appreciated but, more importantly, it signifies the trust that the senior leaders of my organization have placed in me by encouraging me to take on ever-more challenging opportunities and supporting my success.”

George Cole, director of internal controls, who nominated Susanna, said, “Most ordinary people run from a challenge but Susanna Siskind is no ordinary person. Fortunately for me, Susanna has reported directly to me for the majority of her 15-year career at PNC taking on challenging projects.”