Dorothy Savarese Biography

Dorothy A. Savarese is the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cape Cod Five Mutual Company, the sole shareholder of The Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, an independent Massachusetts state-chartered savings bank founded in 1855. The Cape Cod Five has grown to over $2.85 billion in assets with a leadership position in both deposits and loans on Cape Cod. Currently, the Bank employs over 450 people in its 24 locations throughout Cape Cod, the Islands and Southeastern Massachusetts. Dorothy is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cape Cod Five and Chairman of The Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Trust, with $13.7 million in assets.

Dorothy joined Cape Cod Five in 1993 as a commercial lending officer. She then became Senior Vice President, Director of Product Planning before she was named Chief Operating Officer in 2004 and served in that capacity until becoming President and Chief Executive Officer in 2005. Prior to joining the Cape Cod Five, Dorothy served as an officer for a regional Midwestern bank. Before that, she worked for a national economic development consulting organization. Dorothy holds an MBA from Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School.

Dorothy currently serves as Chairman-Elect of the American Bankers Association, Secretary of the Board of Trustees of Cape Cod Community College and a Board member at Gosnold on Cape Cod, an addiction healthcare provider. She recently completed her final term on the FDIC Advisory Committee on Community Banking, is a past Chairman and Board member of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, past Chairman of the Massachusetts Bankers Association and a past member of the Board of Directors of the American Bankers Mutual Insurance Ltd. In 2015, Dorothy was named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking by American Banker magazine for the fourth consecutive year.

Only two women have ever been named chairman of the American Bankers Association. Dorothy Savarese is one of them.

The role of pioneering female leader is already familiar to her, as she is the first woman to serve as chief executive at her Massachusetts-based thrift in its more than 150 years.

She is looking forward to adding the distinction of becoming only the second woman to lead the country's largest banking trade group in more than 140 years — after Elizabeth Duke in 2004. "It's very exciting," she says of her steadily growing role in the ABA.

In July, Savarese was nominated as chairman-elect, a post she'll officially accept at the ABA's annual convention in November. She takes over as chairman next year.

No doubt she'll prove just as effective as she has been at Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank. The thrift, which has $2.7 billion of assets and just over 450 employees, has made a name for itself by outperforming larger rivals in its region. Its assets have more than doubled in Savarese's decade of leadership, and in the past year it has opened two branches and two loan production offices.

Savarese has been a longtime advocate for women in banking. Savarese told the Connecticut Women in Banking conference in April that the industry needs "women's creativity and collaborative approach and innovation and insights. We have got to develop our human talent, and if we ignore half of that, we're not going to be competitive."

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