Renee Pallenberg

During her nearly 30 years at Guilford Savings Bank, Renee Pallenberg, currently senior vice president, retail banking and marketing officer, has done it all. Since starting as a teller, Pallenberg has been involved with everything from IT to customer service, branch administration to marketing management.

But despite what her impressively comprehensive work resume may suggest, Pallenberg would never assume she knows all she needs to know.

“You can always keep learning,” Pallenberg said.

Pallenberg graduated first in her class from the Connecticut School of Finance and Management, receiving the John C. Shortell Award, and she’s currently enrolled in the ABA’s Stonier Graduate School of Banking, a three-year program.

“She’s probably one of the most impressive people at our bank, in my opinion, and I say that as someone who’s worked here for 10 years. … She’s not coasting. She’s an important person at the bank and she’s achieved a lot, but yet she’s still trying to learn more,” said Lisa LeMonte, assistant vice president, marketing and community development officer at Guilford Savings Bank.

“It’s an impressive time commitment from someone who has very little [time] to spare.”

Pallenberg found her time particularly stretched when she was charged with overseeing the bank’s relocation and renovation of its Madison branch and, more recently, the renovation of the bank’s main branch in Guilford.

The bank was determined to remain open during the entirely of its Guilford office renovation.

“We kept moving teams of people from different areas of the building and then to different buildings for three or four months at a time, so it was a constant scheduling nightmare,” Pallenberg noted with a laugh.

Pallenberg brings her same desire for improvement at the bank to her community. She is a five-year board member of the Madison Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money and provide grants to organizations looking to better the local community.

A Madison resident, Pallenberg will serve as board president in 2018.

“The whole concept … of being able to see the specific needs of the town in which you live and being a part of helping to make changes, that’s what attracted me to the Madison Foundation,” Pallenberg said.