Truist taps former Fiserv chief Michael Lyons as next CEO

Truist Financial Corp. has chosen to go outside the legacy brands of BB&T and SunTrust for its next chief executive officer.

As part of a planned management succession, Truist announced Monday that William Rogers, 68, will retire as chief executive on Sept. 1.

Truist has named Michael Lyons, 55, as president and chief executive, also starting Sept. 1.

At that time, Rogers will shift to full-time executive chairman.

Truist's community/retail banking hub is in Winston-Salem.

Rogers' transition into retirement follows a similar pattern to Kelly King, who served as Truist's first chairman and chief executive when the bank debuted in December 2019 as the result of BB&T Corp.'s $33.4 billion purchase of SunTrust Banks Inc.

Rogers took over as chief executive from King in September 2021 and succeeded King as chairman in March 2022.

"It has been the professional privilege of my lifetime to lead Truist and to work alongside truly extraordinary teammates," Rogers said. "We are proud and ready for this important next chapter in our story."

Lyons has more than three decades of financial services experience.

Most recently, he was chief executive of Fiserv Inc., a global financial technology and payments company that serves more than 6 million merchants and 10,000 financial institutions with core and digital banking solutions, card processing, merchant acquisition and point-of-sale systems.

Before that, Lyons was president of the top-10 U.S. bank, PNC Financial Services Group, where he led all its lines of business. He worked at PNC for 13 years.

Earlier in his career, Lyons was global head of corporate development, strategic planning, investor relations and private equity at Bank of America.

"Through our succession planning process, it became clear that Mike is an action-oriented leader committed to high performance across the full range of our company operations and the right person to lead Truist's next chapter of growth," Truist lead independent director Thomas Skains said in a news release. "We are incredibly grateful for Bill's purpose-driven leadership as Truist's chief executive officer, and we look forward to his impactful contributions as executive chair."

Lyons said that Truist "is an exceptional bank with a strong foundation, incredible teammates and an extraordinary culture."

Brean Capital analyst Christopher Marinac said the hiring of Lyons may surprise employees and customers.

"The changes to the company could be greater than expected," Marinac said. "This may generate new and improved earnings results and lead to a re-rating of the company by investors. We see this as a possible catalyst to a higher stock price and price over earnings over time, especially under the new chief executive."

Marinac cautioned that Lyons' fingerprints on Truist's operations will take several quarters to become evident and may not be evident until at least mid-2027.

Truist's Rogers received a 2.6% increase in total compensation to $14.31 million during fiscal year 2025.

The bank reported that Rogers' CEO pay ratio was $137-to-$1, compared with the median employee compensation of $104,397.

For fiscal 2025, Truist reported net income of $4.97 billion, up from $4.47 billion in fiscal 2024.

Truist disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday that Rogers would be paid his base salary through the end of 2026. He would be paid a pro-rated amount of a $1 million annual salary until his retirement as chairman.

Rogers will also be eligible for his normal fiscal 2026 incentive award, as well as for 2027 until his retirement.

Rogers would also receive a long-term incentive award worth up to $8.5 million, consisting of performance-based stock units, if he remains as executive chairman through the 2027 annual shareholder meeting.

Truist said it will pay Lyons a starting annual base salary of $1.3 million. His initial incentive target for 2026 will be at least 325% of his base salary for that year.

Lyons would be eligible for up to $12 million in long-term incentive awards for 2026 and at least $12 million in those awards for 2027.

Lyons also will be paid $1 million in cash "in consideration of compensation foregone from his prior employer." He would also be eligible for $1.7 million in 2027 from an annual incentive plan, as well as for up to $37.5 million in other potential stock and incentive payouts.

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