Pamela Kilday, chief information officer and managing director of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, spoke to Tusculum College student athletes in a presentation on campus on Friday (Oct. 12) about her journey from athletics to a serving in management positions in some of the top banks in the country.
Kilday shared with the students her journey from just wanting “to play basketball” to a career in which she has held management positions in three of the top 10 banks in the country during the “Women in Leadership” luncheon, presented by the Offices of Career Development and Multicultural Affairs at Tusculum.
After her athletic career had ended, Kilday told the students that she was coaching and teaching at a college in Chicago, a position she enjoyed and thought would be her future career path.
However, she said, that changed after she had lunch with a friend who was working with a bank to teach its personnel how to use new technology. The friend had decided that he needed people who could teach because the “techies” and the bankers were not connecting.
“He asked me, ‘Do you know any teachers?’ I told him, I knew several teachers. And then he asked, ‘what about you?'” she said.
That conversation led Kilday into the world of finance, and she now has 20 years of operations and technology experience in the financial industry.
In her current position, Kilday is responsible for developing the strategic vision and delivering technology solutions for SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, which is the full-service corporate and investment banking arm of SunTrust Banks, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, where Kilday lives.
Kilday has implemented a holistic technology methodology that effectively incorporates information technology and business professionals into a strategic delivery team at the bank. Through her work, she has helped the bank expand product offerings, improve operations, achieve greater risk management efficiency, and implement a state-of-the-art disaster recovery site serving primarily capital markets programs.
A native of Greene County, Kilday is a graduate of Chuckey-Doak High School, where she played basketball. Prior to her corporate career, she was a member of the Women’s Professional Basketball league. This league played three seasons from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1981, and is generally considered to be the first American professional women’s basketball league founded.
Kilday has several close ties to Tusculum College. Her father, Jack Kilday (who was also her high school basketball coach), is a 1957 graduate of Tusculum, and her mother, Nancy Kilday, has worked at the college for 30 years. Her sister, Kim Kilday Dixon, graduated from Tusculum in 1985. Kilday attended Tennessee Technological University, where she earned a bachelor of science degree, and earned a masters degree from the University of Illinois.