Longtime corporate executive Thasunda Brown Duckett has accomplished a lot in her career. After serving as CEO of Chase Consumer Banking for more than four years, it was recently announced that Duckett will become the next CEO of the Association of Teachers of Insurance and Annuity of America (TIAA). When she takes up this role on May 1, she will be the second black woman currently leading a Fortune 500 company, and only the fourth black woman in history to serve as CEO of the Fortune 500.
Duckett credits much of his success to discovering his professional passion from the beginning. As a graduate student at the University of Houston, she got an internship at the mortgage lending company Fannie Mae. “I loved it,” she told The New York Times in 2019, “and I started to realize that I was going to work in the mortgage business.”
After graduating from college, Duckett says he received several job offers, but decided to stay with Fannie Mae, although she was the lowest.
“I said, ‘I know this company and I like people, and I will have a better chance here,'” she told the Times. In addition to being familiar with the company’s culture, Duckett explained that he also knew that Fannie Mae would provide him with opportunities in line with his career goals. “You find your passion and, for me, it was home ownership.”
Thasunda Duckett, CEO of consumer bank at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The executive says that her humble upbringing was what inspired her to pursue a career in finance.
“When you know what it’s like to look in the fridge and just see baking soda, or you know what it’s like to have the lights off, personal finances are important,” says Duckett. In her role at Fannie Mae, she helped lead popular housing initiatives for people of color.
After leaving Fannie Mae in 2004, Duckett, who has an MBA from Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, joined Chase. Prior to assuming her current role in 2016, she served as CEO of Chase Auto Finance, senior vice president of emerging markets and affordable loans and senior vice president of real estate loans.
Reflecting on her career journey, the 47-year-old woman says she thinks a lot about her parents and how their relationship with money has taken her to where she is today.
“I often think of the day my father asked me to help him plan his retirement and I had to say to him, ‘Dad, your pension is not enough,'” she said in a statement announcing her new role at TIAA . Duckett’s father worked at a Xerox warehouse in New Jersey before he lost his job and moved with his family to Texas, she says. Her mother worked as a teacher. Their parents were unable to buy a home until Duckett could help them with the purchase.
Now, as TIAA’s new CEO, the executive says, “I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to lead a company that has helped millions of people retire with ‘enough’ to live with dignity and excited about the opportunity to help TIAA map your next 100 years. “
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Thasunda Brown Duckett on TIAA’s new CEO role: ‘I’m so grateful for the shoulders I’m supporting’
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