PBN 2026 C-Suite Awards
LARGE PRIVATE COMPANY (More than 150 employees):
Jill DeShiro
Centreville Bank executive vice president, chief financial and chief operating officer
Jill DeShiro, Centreville Bank’s executive vice president, chief financial and chief operating officer, has spent her time as a leader surrounding herself with a wide array of skill sets, opinions and backgrounds.
That and her ability to listen and collaborate with the teams around her have made her a well-rounded leader.
“I’d say I hire people that are much smarter than me, and I listen to them,” DeShiro said. “I also lead by example.”
DeShiro, who has been with the bank for 15 years, has served as its chief financial officer and chief operating officer for the past five years. She has brought to the bank deep experience in financial operations, risk management and regulatory environments.
Some of her major accomplishments have been the modernization of the bank’s financial infrastructure and its operational strategies.
“Being here 15 years, I think the biggest piece is the introduction and adoption of just technology in general,” DeShiro said.
She noted that having “antiquated systems” was not uncommon for a bank the size of Centreville at the time. From a risk management standpoint especially, DeShiro said she was able to bring in new tools to keep pace with industry standards.
“We were at a point when I was accustomed to some more tools, so I was able to introduce things like that at the beginning, slowly gaining acceptance,” DeShiro said. “I helped bring that to light from a risk management, financial and customer engagement position, to just maintain our relevance and continue on as the rest of the world was changing.”
Danielle North, Centreville Bank’s vice president of communications and engagement, said one of DeShiro’s contributions to the bank in recent memory is the creation of the bank’s transformation and intelligence team.
“Internally, that made a big change,” North said. “That was something that did not exist.”
That team, DeShiro said, knows everything that is going on at the company.
“From technology, projects, change initiatives and efficiency,” she said. “Real operational excellence is another word that a lot of companies will use.”
That new team came about because DeShiro listened to those around her.
“I saw value in it. It’s unique to community banks,” she said. “This is something that costs money and it costs investment, but we see the results here every day. Whether it’s through employees having a unit to just lean on for operational support, for education around tools that they’re using, or ideas on how they can do something better.”
The transformation and intelligence team allows departments to do their job while also knowing that they have more organization and that there is a system that can oversee and help direct every major initiative at the bank, DeShiro said.
DeShiro was also instrumental in another one of the bank’s most ambitious moves in its recent history: its merger with PB Bancorp and its subsidiary, Putnam Bank. The transaction, valued at approximately $115.5 million, added Putnam’s eight new branches in eastern Connecticut to Centreville’s footprint.
DeShiro said she was involved in the process from the beginning.
“That was my first acquisition that I’d ever actually worked on here. My expertise helped there,” she said. “Our CEO was very open to my being involved with it, whether it be [the] human resources aspect of helping organize the employees at both organizations to try to bring us together, the operational impacts and, obviously, the financial.”
Most importantly, DeShiro helped bring workers together as operations became virtual due to the shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“I think my longevity here helped. I think the fact that the employees trusted me, and I knew who to bring in,” she said.
Being able to bring in new employees of all sorts of professional backgrounds has helped DeShiro reach her current role.
“You want different opinions; you want different backgrounds. You want different skill sets,” DeShiro said. “I listen; I look to my team for advice.”
For North, DeShiro’s approachability and her ability to create a welcoming environment are vital to the operations of the bank.
“She has a really warm and human way about her that is extremely approachable,” North said. “Jill is the same whether she’s in the boardroom or walking through the halls of this building. She shows up in the same approachable, understanding sort of way.”
