Regional Economic Development Director

0101 The Huntington National Bank; Westchester (TX); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work arrangement

Job summary

Huntington Bank is seeking a Regional Economic Development Director to lead strategic relationships with regional, state and local stakeholders, driving economic development initiatives that empower communities and grow Huntington’s regional footprint.

The role emphasizes leadership, engagement, and cross-functional coordination with government, business, and nonprofit leaders to deliver measurable economic outcomes and strengthen the bank’s presence in the community.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Minimum 7 years in economic development, community development, planning, or government relations.

Responsibilities

• Develops and executes strategic relationship plans with state, regional and local stakeholders.
• Engages regional market leadership to drive partnership planning and community impact.
• Monitors issues to protect Huntington’s reputation and align bank engagement.
• Leverages CEO relationship process to support business success and cross-region collaboration.
• Communicates strategy status and opportunities to regional leadership; reports on lifecycle activities.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Stakeholder engagement

Reputation management

Business development

Communication & reporting

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Business administration / Finance / Public Administration / City Planning (advanced)

Job description

Description Summary: The Regional Economic Development Director at Huntington Bank is somebody who embodies our purpose, values, and behaviors and understands how they combine to sustain our Welcome culture. This professional has a passion for growing the region’s economy and enhancing opportunities provided by economic investments and business expansions to create new business partnerships for Huntington. This individual is an engaging and accountable professional who can identify and leverage impactful connections across Huntington’s regional and business leadership teams and bring together community, business, government, and not-for-profit leaders within the region to help drive greater economic success. By successfully executing the role’s responsibilities, this colleague will empower Huntington to achieve our purpose to make people’s lives better, help businesses thrive, and strengthen the communities we serve.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership Develops and executes a strategic relationship plan to identify, build, influence and enhance partnerships with key state, regional and local stakeholders engaged in major economic development initiatives and strategies. Stakeholders include, among others: community, economic development, non-profit and philanthropic leaders; workforce development agencies; higher education organizations; local elected officials; and others in a position of leadership or support connected to key economic development projects.
• Stakeholder Engagement Responsible for engaging regional market leadership team(s) to drive partnership planning, business segment collaboration, colleague engagement and community impact around economic development activities. Serves as a respected and recognized market leader with key community stakeholders to ensure that Huntington is in a distinguished leadership position within the economic development ecosystem by leveraging a strategic relationship plan, community connections, related business segment strategies, and executive leader/colleague board service and community engagement. Activities could include – in coordination with colleagues with responsibility within respective ownership areas – sponsorship, attendance and participation in targeted business, government, and non-profit community events; speaking engagements; social media activation.
• Reputation & Risk Management Monitors local, regional and state community issues associated with the economic development efforts and ensures management of issues and protection of Huntington’s reputation and position. Ensures alignment of bank engagement to optimize impact and opportunity and minimize risk.
• Business Development Actively engages with various levels of Huntington’s leadership to utilize the company’s Optimal Customer Relationship process to support business success. Actively seeks out opportunities that result in stronger customer partnerships and business opportunities. Works with colleagues in the region to leverage the power of our local market advantage and actively seeks out opportunities for cross-region and cross-segment collaboration.
• Communication and Reporting Communicates strategy status, opportunities, and challenges to regional leadership throughout lifecycle of the signature economic development activities where applicable, with both a short-term execution and long-term view that recognizes the transformational scope, scale and duration of such development activities. Performs other duties as assigned.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree
• Minimum of 7 years economic development, community development and planning, or government relations experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in business administration, Finance Public Administration, City or Regional Planning
• Must have proven record of community involvement and engagement, and ability to cultivate and activate a broad network to support responsibilities of the position
• Must have the ability, willingness, relationship building skills necessary to partner with colleagues at all levels to work with urgency to drive results, commit to flawless execution, and focus on the priorities that will have the most significant impact to the company.
• Must demonstrate a high degree of skill and independent judgement while working in a cross-functional, collaborative environment.
• Deep experience working with elected officials, community leaders and business leaders/organizations in diverse economic and geographic environments.
• Experience communicating complex concepts and programs into concise messages.
• Demonstrated success at navigating complex issues and reputation management.
• Excellent customer service and must be highly motivated, focused, and goal oriented.
• Ability to interact effectively with all levels across the organization.
• Proven sales and negotiation skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience with financial products, services, and sales preferred.
• Ability to handle multiple priorities and independently problem-solve.

Exempt Status

(Yes = not eligible for overtime pay) (No = eligible for overtime pay) Yes

Workplace Type

Office

Certain positions outside our branch network may be eligible for a flexible work arrangement. We’re combining the best of both worlds: in-office and work from home. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. Remote roles will also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for moments that matter. Specific work arrangements will be provided by the hiring team.

Huntington is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Tobacco-Free Hiring Practice: Visit Huntington's Career Web Site for more details.

Note to Agency Recruiters: Huntington Bank will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume. All unsolicited resumes sent to any Huntington Bank colleagues, directly or indirectly, will be considered Huntington Bank property. Recruiting agencies must have a valid, written and fully executed Master Service Agreement and Statement of Work for consideration.

Welcome to Huntington! At Huntington, we look out for people. From reinventing banking with game-changing innovations to building an internal culture that creates lifelong bonds, together, we can make people’s lives better. And amazing things happen when we look out for each other. We prove it every day. Whether it’s helping a colleague or collaborating on a new tool that will revolutionize the way we save money, our actions can have a huge impact. Our colleagues look out for people with a Can-Do Attitude, Service Heart and Forward Thinking. Those are our values—simple but powerful. Each of them pushes us do the right thing, to do right by people. Because people are what matter. If that sounds like you, we hope you’ll apply to join our team. If you’d like to learn more about how Huntington looks out for people, visit https://www.huntington.com/lookingout

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