At the same time CIT vice chairman Steven Mnuchin will step down from management with effect from March 31, 2016, but will remain as a member of the board of directors. The company also announced the appointment of CIT corporate controller Carol Hayles as chief financial officer with effect from November 1, 2015.

Vice Admiral John Ryan, CIT lead director, speaking on behalf of the board of directors, said: “We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ellen Alemany as vice chairman of CIT as she moves to her new role as CEO, a position she will assume on April 1, 2016.

“As an experienced and well respected leader in the commercial banking sector, she is well suited to assume these responsibilities and lead CIT forward. On behalf of the board we congratulate Ellen on her new position and look forward to working with her in the future.”

Alemany has been a CIT director since January 2014 and is a member of the Audit and Regulatory Compliance committees. She is also a member of the CIT Bank board of directors.

She is the former head of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Americas, the management structure that oversees RBS’ businesses in the Americas. She also served as chairman and chief executive officer for RBS Citizens Financial Group.

to RBS, Alemany served as chief executive officer for Global Transaction Services of Citigroup. She held a number of senior positions during her tenure at Citigroup, including executive vice president for the Commercial Business group and president and CEO of CitiCapital.

She also held a number of executive positions in Citigroup’s Global Corporate Bank, including customer group executive of North American markets, Global Industry head of Media and Communications, US industry head of Consumer Products and executive vice president of Citibank and Customer Group executive for the Global Relationship Bank in Europe, based in London.

Alemany received her MBA in finance from Fordham University. She serves on the boards of the Fidelity National Information Services, Automatic Data Processing and the Center for Discovery.

Thain, who was appointed to turn around the commercial lender after its bankruptcy, told Reuters his work at CIT is done after a series of asset sales, purchases, and shifts in the way the company funds itself.

"CIT had many things that were broken and needed to be fixed," Thain, 60, said in a telephone interview.

"What's left will be primarily a US-based commercial bank, and that's what Ellen's expertise is," he said.

CIT filed for bankruptcy in late 2009 after losing access to funding in the bond markets during the financial crisis. Since Thain took the reins in February 2010, he has focused on reducing the company's reliance on bond market funding, wiping out more than $30 billion of high-cost debt, and increasing CIT's use of deposit funding.

In August 2015, CIT closed on its purchase of OneWest Bank, which brought the company more deposit funding.

CIT said last week it would explore strategic alternatives for its $10 billion commercial air unit and sell its Canadian and Chinese businesses to help with its focus on US commercial banking.