TERRI DIAL is not the only high-flying American woman running the retail operations of a British bank. She must do battle with Deanna Oppenheimer, drafted in to run the UK retail division at Barclays after a 20-year stint at the Seattle-based Washington Mutual, where she started each day by water skiing.
Despite the media obsession with the prospect of a cat-fight between the two, Ms Dial insists that she never even met Ms Oppenheimer in America and they first clapped eyes on each other in London.
“I never even thought of her as a rival. She’s from Washington [State], I was in California. It makes for a good media story, that’s all,” Ms Dial says.
Ms Oppenheimer was voted one of America’s top five bankers and gained renown for a series of customer- friendly initiatives, which included putting coffee bars and children’s play areas into branches. She became best-known for creating Barbie- type dolls modelled on counter staff as part of a marketing drive.
Ms Oppenheimer has yet to outline her strategy formally, but it is understood that Barclays is contemplating a shake-up of its UK retail bank, which could see it increase its high street presence in prime locations. The bank is also considering putting Woolwich mortgage operations in some Barclays branches.
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Ms Oppenheimer will report to Frits Seegers, the former Citigroup executive, who has been hired to run Barclays’ global consumer and commercial banking operations.