|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
As senior vice president, chief operations and chief DEI officer at Five Star Bank, Lydia Ramirez is the greater Sacramento area’s highest-ranking Latina in banking. Her professional story is one of talent, determination, and resilience. And it’s a story that got started by accident.
Ramirez, who reached the C-suite at the age of forty, never dreamt of joining the executive ranks in a large financial institution. As a scholarship student double-majoring in psychology and Spanish at the University of California, Davis, she originally intended to pursue a medical degree. There was just one problem—she fainted at the sight of blood.
Although she was discouraged at first, it didn’t take long for Ramirez to realize she had other options. While working at Union Bank to supplement her scholarship, she heard about the bank’s competitive mentorship program from a colleague. She became one of two candidates accepted for the Northern California program.
The program took Ramirez from an entry-level to a management position in just twelve months, and she stayed at Union Bank for nearly seventeen years. During her tenure, Ramirez built customer service teams, tracked operational goals, and led sales activities. She also completed the Consumer Banking Association’s executive banking school.
In 2017, Ramirez joined Five Star Bank as senior vice president and director of branch administration. As she moved from a large financial institution with ten thousand employees to a small community bank with fewer than one hundred, Ramirez noticed something. “I saw very few women, just one in executive leadership, and no women of color. I loved the bank’s mission and culture and knew there would be an opportunity to help increase representation,” she explains.
As a first-generation American daughter of Mexican immigrants, Ramirez saw education and hard work as a ticket to a better life. The view led her to enroll in California State University, Sacramento’s MBA program, with Five Star support. She created a formal DEI strategy as part of her thesis.
“I don’t want to stop creating possibilities that show my own kids what can happen. Every time I break a barrier or move these DEI initiatives forward, it opens another conversation about what could be.”
Lydia Ramirez
“I wanted to create a nexus for how a bank can give equal opportunities to all employees and mirror communities in which it serves, ultimately paving potential pathways to leadership positions,” she says.
Ramirez didn’t create the DEI program for any bank—she customized it to fit Five Star, with the intention of implementing it herself. Doing so would require boldness. “These documents recognize opportunities about the makeup of a business, and by acting on them with intention, the business becomes opportunistic and profitable,” she says.
Five Star’s CEO supported the plan and asked Ramirez to implement it as the organization’s new chief DEI officer. The first thing she did was solicit buy-in from other leaders and communicate plan details to Five Star employees. “I didn’t see my job as one where I champion this cause alone, but I see myself as the one who sheds light on a problem and points to what could be,” Ramirez explains.
Tailoring the plan to meet Five Star’s needs and culture yielded early results. Since about 35 percent of her colleagues are young professionals, Ramirez made their professional development the focus of the bank’s first employee resource group. Now, the DEI team is planning several similar groups where individuals of shared backgrounds and experiences can network, provide mutual support, and advocate for specific causes.
Ramirez designed the DEI strategy to impact Five Star Bank at all levels. In 2023, Five Star celebrated, supported, and engaged in the following results:
- 62.7 percent of the total workforce were women
- 43.8 percent of the total workforce were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
- 47.1 percent of senior vice presidents and above were women
- 29.7 percent of senior vice presidents and above were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
- 37.5 percent of the executive team were women (the CFO, the COO, and the CMO)
- 25 percent of the executive team were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
- 25 percent of the board of directors were women
- 17 percent of the board of directors were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
These results matter because the bank has aggressive growth plans in some of the nation’s most diverse cities, like Sacramento and San Francisco. Five Star opened a flagship office in San Francisco in the fall of 2024.
“We want to be the preeminent Northern California commercial community banking institution, and you can’t do that without expanding into the Bay Area,” Ramirez says. “I know we’ll be more successful in these efforts now that we mirror the communities we serve.” DEI initiatives not only help companies attract and retain employees—they also build trust and engender the goodwill of current and potential customers.
Those who know Ramirez best describe her as a direct and passionate person who is never afraid to have difficult conversations. They respect her desire for positive change and her willingness to speak up. “I’ve never been afraid to challenge the status quo, because if nobody challenges the way things have always been done, then things will never change,” she says.
When she’s not at work, Ramirez volunteers for nonprofit organizations and serves on boards including the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services, and elsewhere. She’s also parenting two high schoolers who watch what she does at Five Star and beyond.
“I don’t want to stop creating possibilities that show my own kids what can happen,” she says. “Every time I break a barrier or move these DEI initiatives forward, it opens another conversation about what could be.”
