Skip to main content

WomenIn: When Women Lead - Speaker Bio

Carole L. Brown

Carole L. Brown is Head of Asset Management for The PNC Financial Services Group. In this role, she is responsible for leading PNC’s wealth management and private banking services for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net worth individuals and families, as well as custom investment and advisory solutions for institutional clients.

Prior to being named to her current role, Brown was chief change and risk officer for the Asset Management Group (AMG) and Corporate & Institutional Banking (C&IB) businesses. In this role she was responsible for managing overall operational risk framework, coordinating with all business lines to ensure appropriate risk governance and oversight for change initiatives, and maintaining oversight for business risk appetite, key risk indicators, control validation and testing alongside businesses and enterprise testing. Brown also had responsibility for issues management, regulatory capital models, regulatory examinations, policies and procedures, and first line of defense compliance within AMG and C&IB.

Prior to joining PNC in August 2019, Brown served as chief financial officer for the City of Chicago under Mayor Rahm Emanuel from May 2015 to May 2019. Brown assumed the role of the CFO when the City of Chicago was entering into the greatest fiscal crisis of its 149-year history. She worked closely with the Mayor and his senior management team to develop and implement a series of financial reforms to restore financial stability to the city.

Prior to her work for the City of Chicago, Brown had a more than 25-year career as one of the leading municipal finance investment bankers in the country. For six and half years, Brown served as chairman of the Chicago Transit Authority Board, a position she held through September 2009. As CTA chair, Brown oversaw policy for the nation’s second largest transportation agency. She was a member of the Transition Team for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, served as chairman of his TIF Reform Panel, and was one of his appointees to the board of the Regional Transportation Authority. From 2017 to 2019, Brown served as a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory ommittee. She serves as board member for Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Metropolitan Planning Council, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and The Alto Experience. She is also a member of The Economic Club of Chicago, The Executives’ Club of Chicago and The Chicago Network. She is a 2002 Fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago and in 2007 was named a Distinguished Fellow.

Brown graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in government and from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management with a master’s degree in Management.