MINNEAPOLIS _ Richard Davis, who led U.S. Bancorp through the economic downturn and shaped it into the nation's best-performing large bank by financial measures, will step down as chief executive in April, the company said Tuesday.
Davis, 58, during his decade in charge of the Minneapolis-based banking giant also became a force in Twin Cities civic life. He led charitable campaigns, advocated for early childhood education, was embroiled in the Minnesota Orchestra's labor dispute, helped broker the deal for the new Minnesota Vikings stadium, for which his company bought naming rights, and bring the Super Bowl to it in 2018.
He will be succeeded by Andy Cecere, a 32-year U.S. Bank veteran who became its chief operating officer two years ago at the start of a carefully-orchestrated leadership transition. Davis will remain executive chairman.
"Today, it is time for me to officially start passing the torch to Andy," Davis wrote in a note to employees. "The Board and I are confident that he is ready for the challenge and the right choice to lead U.S. Bank into its next period of growth."
The company said the change will occur at the company's annual meeting on April 18.
The two executives have worked closely for years and, in a joint interview on Tuesday, said that employees, shareholders and customers would see little change as a result of the transition.
"We are very much aligned in how we think about things and how we think about leadership," Cecere said. "So I do not expect major changes."
Davis became chief executive in December 2006 and chairman in December 2007.
Less than two years into his tenure, the collapse of real estate prices and credit spawned a banking crisis that created the biggest economic downturn since the Depression of the 1930s. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to nearly zero to stimulate a recovery, forcing Davis and other banking executives to scramble to put deposits to work.
"When the world got tough, I realized just how strong the bank was because we emerged even stronger when times got tough because of our highly-credible underwriting standards and our prudent risk profile," Davis said. "And even I, and Andy, were surprised to see how we kept rising higher and higher because, while others were reacting to things they'd done in years past that turned out to be risky, we never did them. And it wasn't because were so thoughtful and realized a downturn might come. It was because our philosophy was we never do anything we can't sustain and repeat."
In recent years, the company's net interest margin and other key measures of financial performance led, or were near the top of, all major banks.
He developed a reputation for candor about the damage that bankers and other financial professionals did to the economy. But he always advocated for the role that banks play in communities and the nation.
"The great thing about U.S. Bank is we are a Main Street bank," Davis said. "As the largest bank that is not considered globally systemic, and the largest bank of regional type, we hold the banner to say 'This is what is good about banking. We do things on the street corner for people that have real names and families.'"
Davis' career began with a job as a bank teller in Fullerton, Calif., a position he took after he was rejected for admission by the Air Force Academy. Working days, Davis attended night school at California State University, Fullerton, where it took him eight years to get a degree in economics.
By age 30, he had become a senior executive at Security Pacific Bank, which was soon bought by Bank of America. In 1993, he followed his boss Jerry Grundhofer to Cincinnati-based Star Banc. He then helped Grundhofer with a series of acquisitions in the 1990s that eventually led to the 2001 merger of Firstar Corp. and U.S. Bancorp.
The new company kept the name and the Minneapolis headquarters and, today, is the country's fifth-largest bank with assets of about $420 billion. Davis succeeded Grundhofer as its leader.
U.S. Bank began its latest executive transition two years ago when it announced that Cecere would become its first chief operating officer since Davis held the position a decade earlier. Cecere, a former chief financial officer, took charge of all the bank's key businesses, including consumer and small-business banking, wholesale banking, commercial real estate, payment services and wealth management.
