Karen McDermott

Karen McDermott is Vast Bank’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.  In this role she is charged with leading the bank’s marketing transformation into a nationally recognized, forward-thinking digital banking brand. Karen began her storied marketing career in global advertising with American Express and has previously served in marketing leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, BNY Mellon, Xerox and SAP. Merging financial services and technology to drive modernization and growth has been a persistent theme throughout Karen’s career: from leading the re-launch of chase.com and Chase Online Banking to tripling the size of the corporate trust global divisional marketing team at BNY Mellon after the bank purchased JP Morgan’s corporate trust book of business. Most recently, as global head of financial services marketing and communications with German software provider SAP, Karen concentrates on innovative technologies like digital assets/payments, AI, ML, blockchain, and metaverse technologies, that are propelling financial services into the future. Karen is a native New Yorker and lives downtown in New York’s Financial District.