Wintrust Financial Corporation Hires Chief Diversity Officer

ROSEMONT, Ill, Aug. 26, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wintrust Financial Corporation ("Wintrust") WTFC has hired Melissa Donaldson to serve as the company's Chief Diversity Officer. In this role, she will work with senior leadership company-wide to drive diversity and inclusion priorities, including initiatives aimed at increasing diversity in leadership pipeline development, marketplace reach and community engagement. She will also manage partnerships to enhance various talent initiatives and work with business units to reinforce inclusive approaches to addressing talent needs and marketplace opportunities in order to drive business success.

"This is a position we've been looking to create for a while now," said Wintrust's President and Chief Executive Officer Edward J. Wehmer. "We know the importance of solidifying our diversity and inclusion efforts and I could not be more pleased with the level of talent we've found to fill this role. I know Melissa's extensive experience and many accomplishments will make her a real asset to Wintrust."

Ms. Donaldson was most recently at Walgreens as Director of Diversity Networks and Communication. Her responsibilities included strategic partnerships, inclusion councils, business resource groups, multicultural leadership initiatives, women's development strategy and diversity communications. Prior to that role, Ms. Donaldson was with CDW as its first-ever Director of Inclusion Practices.

Ms. Donaldson's work has also been published in Profiles in Diversity Journal, Diversity Executive and Workforce Management magazines and shared in a number of industry outlets. She was named to Women Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal in 2008 and is a recipient of the Diversity Officer Leadership Award by Diversity Best Practices and the Rising Star Diversity Leadership Peer Award by Diversity Woman Magazine.

About Wintrust

Wintrust is a financial holding company with assets of approximately $24 billion whose common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.  Built on the "HAVE IT ALL" model, Wintrust offers sophisticated technology and resources of a large bank while focusing on providing service-based community banking to each and every customer.  Wintrust operates fifteen community bank subsidiaries with over 150 banking locations located in the greater Chicago and southern Wisconsin market areas. Additionally, the Company operates various non-bank business units including one of the largest commercial insurance premium finance companies operating in the United States and Canada, a company providing short-term accounts receivable financing and value-added out-sourced administrative services to the temporary staffing services industry, a business unit engaging primarily in the origination and purchase of residential mortgages for sale into the secondary market throughout the United States, and companies providing wealth management services.