Cynthia Newell

Cynthia Newell is Senior Vice President and Chief Impact Officer at City First Bank. She joined the bank in 2016 and leads the bank’s impact strategy, grant funding and other impact capitalization, impact management program, strategic impact partnerships and affiliations, and impact storytelling.  She co-led the bank’s merger of peers integration to support City First Bank in becoming the largest Black-led Minority Depository Institution in the country.  She led the bank to become certified as a B Corp and change its incorporation to public benefit corporation status, making Broadway Financial Corporation one of two publicly traded financial services companies with that mission lock. She led the bank’s receipt of $150MM in Emergency Capital Investment Program (ECIP) Funding and over $5 million in grant funding from the CDFI Fund.

Prior to City First Bank, she spent over 7 years advising actors across the inclusive financial markets’ ecosystem. While a Manager at Deloitte, she incubated, managed, and championed the development of Deloitte’s Social Finance go-to-market strategy, building internal and external relationships with public and private sector clients. She has worked as a consultant with over 100 community development loan funds, banks, credit unions, and venture capital funds to enhance their ability to invest in underinvested markets. She has provided guidance to various clients on how to expand partnerships with CDFIs and other financial inclusion organizations, including the Ford Foundation in reimagining its PRI strategy.