100: Impactful Leadership Creates Success With Amy Chambers

Amy Chambers has over 21 years of experience in the financial services industry and has spent 15 of those in leadership. When she was just 17, one of the fathers of a family she babysat for, asked her to work for them every day during the summer before her freshman year in college. She declined, saying she “needed to get a REAL job”. The father then suggested she interview at “the bank”, to be a teller. She didn’t even know that this man WORKED at a bank, let alone which one. Then, Rich Gold was a District Manager of M&T Bank, a regional, Buffalo-based bank. Today, Rich Gold is President and COO of M&T Bank, which will become the 12th largest bank in the country after its current and ongoing $7.6BB acquisition of People’s United. Amy took the teller job at M&T Bank, and worked as a teller during summers and breaks all throughout college. As a floating teller, she had the unique opportunity to work for a week or two at a time, at roughly 20 different M&T branches and observed an interesting phenonomen- even though each of these branches were part of the same organization and only a few miles apart- their cultures were wildly different. When she realized it all came down to the same one factor- leadership- her profound interest and obsession with understanding leadership was born. In 2004, upon graduating the University of Notre Dame with her BA in Political Science and Philosophy, she joined M&T’s Management Development Program, and worked in the DC Metro area for the next 3 years, holding each and every role in a branch, including Branch Manager. She obtained her investment securities and insurance licenses and found a true love for wealth management, as well. In 2007, she relocated to Southern California so she could pursue her MBA at the USC, where she concentrated in Marketing and General Management and spent a few years as a Branch Manager at both Wells Fargo and US Bank. She’s been a part of numerous clubs, organizations, and boards both during her time in school, and after includi