Citizens Financial Group announced the appointment of Donald H. McCree as Vice Chairman and Head of Commercial Banking. He will serve on the company’s Executive Committee and report to Chairman and CEO Bruce Van Saun. McCree will join Citizens effective Sept. 1, 2015.

McCree comes to Citizens having served in a number of senior leadership positions over the course of 31 years at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its predecessor companies. He has extensive experience in commercial banking gained through positions at JPMorgan including Head of Corporate Banking and CEO of Global Treasury Services, Head of Global Credit Markets, North American Co-Head of Fixed Income, European Co-Head of Investment Banking and Head of European and Asian Syndicated Finance. He also served as Head of Wholesale Risk Management and Head of Treasury and Corporate Development. He retired from JPMorgan in mid-2014.

The Commercial Banking Vice Chairman position at Citizens had been held by Robert Matthews through December 2014, when Matthews tragically passed away. Bob Rubino, Head of Corporate Finance and Capital Markets, and Steve Woods, Head of Corporate Banking, have served as interim co-heads of Commercial Banking and will continue to do so until McCree’s arrival in September.

Van Saun commented, “I am delighted to have someone of Don’s stature and caliber join the Citizens management team to lead Citizens Commercial Banking through its next growth phase. Robert, Bob and Steve have done a terrific job of putting an excellent foundation in place, and I am confident that Don can help take us take it to the next level. Our success as a company rests on our ability to attract great people, and the hiring of Don for this role following our recent hiring of Eric Aboaf as CFO demonstrates our capacity to do that.”

McCree stated, “I am very pleased to join Bruce and the leadership team at Citizens as they work towards building a top-performing regional bank. It is a great platform, and I am excited by this opportunity to drive the business forward.”

Citizens Financial Group Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $132.9 billion in assets as of December 31, 2014.