As a child living in Pittsburgh during the collapse of the steel industry, Vincent J Delie Jr witnessed hardship firsthand. It was a tough environment, but it also shaped the leadership values he still draws on today.
“I grew up in the inner city in a pretty large family,” the current Chairman, President and CEO of F.N.B. Corporation tells host David Jepson on CEO: Behind the Scenes. “A very modest house in a blue-collar neighborhood.”
With the unemployment rate in Pittsburgh peaking at 18 percent in 1983, Delie learned early what it meant to make things work with limited resources.
“It builds a resilience,” he reflects. “You find ways to get things done and to get things accomplished even though you may have limited resources.”
“You find ways to get things done and to get things accomplished even though you may have limited resources.”
Those early challenges weren’t limited to economics. Delie also battled dyslexia.
“I would literally have to read every chapter, outline every chapter, rewrite things just so that I made sure that I comprehended what I was reading,” he says. “I’ve always had a very strong memory recall. So that helped me throughout my career.”
A calculated risk
After graduating high school and college, Delie chose to apply his good memory to a career in the banking sector, rising quickly at one of the United States’ largest banks. But then, he made what many would see as a risky move – joining a small rural institution in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, which lacked capital, systems and scale.
“I left a pretty sophisticated environment and went to work for a very small bank that really had just gone through a transformation and was trying to rebuild itself,” he says.
That gamble paid off.
“We were 29th in market share when I started,” he adds. “Today, we’re the second-largest retail bank in Pittsburgh.”
Delie attributes that growth to building the right team and staying laser-focused on values.
“We looked at these core principles that we wanted to lay out, and collaboration was really important. Innovation is important. Honor, integrity, that’s really important. Doing the right thing,” he notes.
“People want to deal with people, even in this digital age.”
He also made bold investments in data and digital.
“We have 71 trillion fields of data that we manage internally,” he explains.
“We hired data scientists and programmers to extract the data, learn from the data, gain insights from that data and then present it back to the clients or to the employee.”
But that digital transformation didn’t mean abandoning its physical branches.
“People want to deal with people, even in this digital age,” Delie says. “We’ve created a consistent experience across delivery channels.”
In 2024, Delie was named CEO of the Year in The CEO Magazine’s Executive of the Year Awards – United States. It’s an honor he quickly redirects back to his team.
“I’m representing them, so I receive the award, but it really represents the hard work of 5,000 people,” he insists.
For more on Delie’s leadership journey – including his views on AI, organizational alignment and building a culture that lasts – listen to the full episode of CEO: Behind the Scenes.
Listen to the latest episode of our CEO: Behind the Scenes podcast with Vincent J Delie Jr on Amazon, Apple or Spotify.
