PBN C-SUITE 2021 AWARDS
Mary Halpin
Centreville Bank senior vice president, human resources
You might say Mary Halpin’s impressive career in human resources began with being in the right place at the right time.
Halpin began her professional life working in retail, even entering into a training program with Boston-based department store chain Jordan Marsh.
“During a busy Christmas season, they asked me to do all the seasonal hiring for the store, and as a result I became part of the human resources team,” Halpin said. “I found that I loved it, as I could marry my love of the business with my desire to help impact it through people.”
Following a three-year stint with global financial services provider State Street, Halpin spent more than 18 years as vice president of human resources at Fidelity Investments Inc. before accepting a position with Centreville Bank as senior vice president, human resources, in 2019.
Today, Halpin focuses much of her effort on helping the West Warwick-based bank recalibrate its culture to help Centreville achieve its long-term business goals.
“We started by establishing our common purpose, or the reason why we come to work every day,” Halpin said. “From that, we have gone on to build the ‘Centreville Way,’ which is the behaviors and actions that we think are essential to driving us toward delivering on our purpose. Over the last two years, my team and I have continued to develop further tools for employees to use to make sure they are always delivering against our common purpose.”
As part of this work, Halpin said, the bank is working with an outside company to create a diversity, inclusion and equity program. Halpin feels this is an important part of honoring Centreville’s customers and employees and being an active member of the community.
Following Centreville’s acquisition of Putnam Bank last May, Halpin led the HR process to ensure that the bank was able to successfully integrate Putnam’s employees. After interviewing all nonretail employees to gauge fit within the organization, she presented senior management with the proposed organization, including the budget impact to the bank.
“Once a final decision was made, I managed the offer process for the bank employees,” Halpin said. “I created an online version of our orientation, and all employees who were part of the acquisition attended one of several sessions we offered to ensure that everyone was aware of culture, mission and values of the organization. We created a place on our internal website that highlighted all the benefits to employees and customers to becoming part of the new bank and it allowed employees to feel more a part of the organization right from the beginning.”
Community development representative Paola Fernandez said Halpin joined Centreville at a very important time in the bank’s evolution and has pushed the organization forward.
“Since joining Centreville, Mary has laid the groundwork on multiple initiatives that are critical to the ongoing growth of the bank,” Fernandez said. “She empowers employees and is a constant voice of encouragement and support, offering thoughts, ideas and suggestions that always help sustain momentum and focus on our organizational objectives. She demonstrates appreciation of each person’s contribution to the team and fosters open and respectful discussion of diverse perspectives, ideas and thoughts, all while maintaining a great sense of humor.”
Halpin believes the most important part of her job is to be a strong leader – both to the bank’s employees and her team.
“I believe in being a servant leader, working for the employees of the bank and my group, knowing what they need to be successful and helping them find that,” Halpin said. “I love helping people succeed. I am an extrovert by nature, and I like getting work done through other people. I find that to succeed through others, you have to ensure that everyone you work with is at their best, and so I make it my mission to help people achieve what it is they need to be the very best.”
