Bruce Van Saun is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citizens Financial Group, Inc, a super-regional bank that serves approximately six million consumer and business customers.

Van Saun joined Citizens in October 2013 from the Royal Bank of Scotland. He led a successful initial public offering of Citizens in September 2014, followed by a dramatic transformation journey over recent years, including the build out of the Commercial Bank, the launch of Citizens Private Bank, and the expansion into New York Metro through the strategic acquisition of HSBC’s east coast branches and Investors Bancorp. Citizens continues to focus on delivering well for its stakeholders, including customers, colleagues, communities and shareowners.

At RBS, Van Saun served as Group Finance Director and as an executive director on the RBS Board from 2009 to 2013. He led efforts critical to re-establishing safety and soundness at RBS after the financial crisis, including improvements in the capital, liquidity and funding position, reduction in risk concentrations, and several significant divestitures such as Direct Line Group – the company’s insurance subsidiary – through an IPO and sell-down.

Prior to that, Van Saun held several senior positions with Bank of New York and later Bank of New York Mellon over an 11-year period. As Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, he was instrumental in the strategic transformation of BNY from a diversified regional bank into a focused global securities servicer and asset manager. This included over 80 transactions, including notable ones such as the merger with Mellon, a swap of businesses with JP Morgan and the acquisition of Pershing. He had also served as head of Bank of New York’s asset management and market-related businesses.

Van Saun was selected as a Top CEO of 2022 by Barron’s and as the 2019 Banker of the Year by American Banker magazine, while Citizens was named “The US’s Best Bank” (2021) and “The US’s Best Super-regional Bank” (2023) by Euromoney magazine, as well as “Best Bank in the US” (2022) by The Banker, a Financial Times publication. In 2024, Van Saun was awarded the Foreign Policy Association Medal for his longtime commitment to global financial services. He previously had been rated one of the industry’s top CFOs at both RBS and Bank of New York.

Earlier in his more than 30-year financial services career, he held senior positions with Deutsche Bank, Wasserstein Perella Group and Kidder Peabody & Co.  

Throughout his career, Van Saun has served on a number of boards in both the U.S. and the U.K. He is currently a director of Moody’s Corporation and serves on the boards of The Clearing House, the Partnership for Rhode Island and the Bank Policy Institute. In addition, Van Saun is a member of the President’s Advisory Council at Bucknell University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in business administration. He also earned an MBA in finance and general management from the University of North Carolina.