2025 C-Suite Awards
LARGE PRIVATE COMPANY: Maureen Terranova
Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank | Senior vice president and chief information officer
AFTER MAUREEN TERRANOVA WALKED through the doors at Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank – also known as BankFive – for the first time close to four years ago, companywide growth soon followed, both financially and technically.
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Terranova, the Fall River-based bank’s senior vice president and chief information officer, has overseen significant increases in annual gross revenue, growing from almost $61 million in 2021 to slightly more than $81 million in 2023.
She has also helped the bank adopt best practices and new technologies. Terranova’s willingness and ability to always learn something new gives BankFive an edge in understanding technology and innovation.
“It’s great to be a part of that,” Terranova said. “In the last couple of years, we were able to kind of leapfrog past [the COVID-19 pandemic], and just a lot of the technology that’s been implemented. The team that I’ve built has really been able to support a larger-size organization and that has been just really fulfilling.”
Terranova’s main role at BankFive is overseeing all information technology operations, application delivery and support, end user and desktop support, infrastructure and network management, business intelligence and project management.
The pandemic from five years ago, Terranova said, brought challenges to companies’ adaptability, especially for the banking industry. Terranova said she has to remain open-minded to keep up with various changes and to fulfill her goal of supporting the business’s needs.
While she takes her leadership role at BankFive seriously, developing and embracing that role didn’t happen overnight for Terranova.
“Over time, you learn [and] you gain experience,” Terranova said. “I have people who coached and mentored me, so now I feel like it’s my time to coach and mentor people the best I can. Especially people on my team. We give each other guidance, and I think that’s probably the proudest thing I am is being a good, strong leader.”
Some of the leadership skills Terranova gained came when she first got her start as a professional as a developer and a coder, co-writing technical programs. She “loves” that she can create something to help someone do their job, make life easier, faster and better, Terranova said.
“As I started getting to management and learning the true business side of things, that’s when I really got even more interested,” she said, “because now it was like you can take that technology and apply it to various business aspects.”
Helping others troubleshoot and make their tasks more efficient is a perfect fit for BankFive’s culture, Terranova said. She believes the company’s values are fast, family oriented and collaborative, which aligns with her professional strengths.
“At the end of the day, I can implement all the technology I want, but it’s no good if no one’s going to use it,” Terranova said.
Catherine Dillon, BankFive’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, considers Terranova a team player and one who understands priorities and the business line of things.
“Whether we’re adopting new technology or fixing our infrastructure so that we give our employees the tools they need, she’s very receptive to the needs and then tries to broker the right solution to help us with that,” Dillon said.
Outside of Terranova’s role at the bank, she helps mentor entrepreneurs in Rhode Island through EforAll, a mentorship program and entrepreneurship incubator. Dillon said the 12-week program is an accelerator to help prospective businesspeople get all the knowledge you need to run your business.
Dillon said Terranova had a good experience “rooting for her entrepreneur” at a recent EforAll session, which is indicative of Terranova’s personality.
“She is a cheerleader for all of us,” Dillon said. “When somebody has a win, when they get recognized, when they pull off a great project or event, she’s the first one to say that was really great.”
