PBN 2020 Leaders & Achievers Awards
Kevin Tracy | Market executive, Bank of America Corp.
MANAGING THE PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM process, designed by the U.S. Small Business Administration to help small businesses pay workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, “was the most challenging time in 35 years in dealing with customer expectations,” said Bank of America Corp. market executive Kevin Tracy. “The applications weren’t difficult but people were anxious, and the intensity of the moment was incredible.”
Despite the stress, Tracy and his seven-person team provided more than $160 million in PPP loans that the bank funded in Rhode Island. The second-largest distributor of PPP funds nationally, Bank of America disseminated more than $25.4 billion for 330,000 loan applications, according to Tracy.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in economics from Brown University in 1985, Tracy began as a management trainee at Fleet National Bank, which Bank of America later acquired, and rose through the ranks. Now, Tracy serves businesses in the $5 million to $50 million range, which encompasses much of the state’s business sector.
“Every year is a challenge to grow organically, but we do it one client at a time, one product at a time,” Tracy said. “We focus not just on our business client but who that business client represents, including each individual employee and their servicing needs.” Tracy also serves as the local market integration executive, part of Bank of America’s three-person leadership team in Rhode Island. Their efforts have brought about a 30% growth in referrals among the bank’s eight business lines over the past five years and an annual 15% revenue growth.
“I enjoy the ‘servant’ aspect [of leadership] in terms of leading by example and speaking up; many organizations need our help,” said Tracy, a multiyear winner of the bank’s Pinnacle Award, a Junior Achievement of Rhode Island Profile in Excellence 2019 honoree, and a 2004 Leadership Rhode Island alumnus. Serving diverse nonprofit organizations as president or treasurer, Tracy said, “My late father, Dick Tracy, who headed the Small Business Association of New England before he died, was a mentor for me.”
