Inside Bank of America's veteran-hiring binge

Serenna Madrid spent six years in the U.S. Army, including a year deployed in Afghanistan where she managed logistics and occasionally guided Congressional delegations or even celebrities as they visited the troops.

With a degree in biology earned on an ROTC scholarship before her service, Madrid did not have a banking career on her radar once she left service. But the highly translatable skills she learned in military logistics helped her land a spot in Bank of America Corp.’s two-year Global Technology and Operations training program, and in March, she completed training and started work as a business continuity consultant.

[ALSO READ: Veterans job fair to be held at Charlotte Motor Speedway]

“I took off the boots and put on my heels,” Madrid says.

GT&O manages the systems and platforms needed for deposits, consumer lending, wealth management and other lines of business, and the work Madrid does ensures plans and strategies are in place to respond when there’s an interruption of bank operations.

“I interviewed with about 15 companies, and Bank of America stood out as the one and only company I wanted to work with coming out of the military,” Madrid says. “There’s so much employee engagement, and the employees are diverse and inclusive. I’d heard about the bank’s push to hire veterans and that meant a lot to me.”

Charlotte-based Bank of America made a commitment several years ago to hire at least 10,000 veterans, National Guard troops and reservists over the next few years, and the company reaffirmed that goal at its shareholder meeting in April.

Read more about those efforts here.

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