Rawlins’ Unique Path to Redefining Community Banking
Very few seasoned bankers will tell you they once dreamed of careers behind teller windows or guiding a loan committee meeting or immersed in regulatory red tape. More often, their journeys into banking unfolded gradually.
That’s certainly true for Ilaria Rawlins. Now the CEO of Columbus-based Fortuna Bank, Rawlins didn’t follow a predictable script. Instead, she leaned into a healthy sense of competition and a genuine talent for connecting with people—traits that have shaped not just her career, but the culture of the institution she now leads. Over time, her way of doing business gelled into an admirable set of values that she brings to her career. These personal assets include a customer-first outlook, a deep sense of fairness and understanding, and a healthy desire to win under whatever definition that means, situation to situation.
Fortuna Bank, for which she is CEO, is one of only 15 women-owned banks in the U.S. The bank, which launched in December 2024, was named for the Roman god of fortune. Owing to the business-building efforts of Rawlins and her diligent staff, it has accumulated:
- 150 clients (primarily commercial)
- $36 million in total assets
- $16 million in deposits
- $3 million in loans
Of its reported 350 shareholders, 75 percent or so are women.
Leadership Lessons from Competitive Sports
Rawlins traces her leadership roots back to her childhood in Syracuse, New York. The oldest of three sisters in a sports-loving household, Rawlins fell for the lure of New York fandom: Yankees, Giants, Knicks and Syracuse Basketball.
“My mom was born and raised in Florence, Italy,” Rawlins reveals. “She didn’t come to the U.S. until her early 20s when my parents met. She was a big sports person; she ran track in high school and played soccer. She brought out in me a lot of enthusiasm about sports and being competitive. So, the feeling of being on a team was always a lot of fun for me.”
Rawlins’ parents connected abroad. “My father was a foreign exchange student in Florence, spending a semester there during his college years. They met and, when he returned to the U.S., they corresponded for about two years or so. They then decided to get married.”
In her teenage and college years, Rawlins tapped the sports-competition genes she inherited from her mother. She opted for volleyball, an ambitious choice for someone hardly of Amazonian stature.
What she lacked in physical size, she made up for with commitment. “I was the shortest on the team,” she says, “but I hustled the most.
“At the end of the season, the coach gave me a ‘most improved’ award. I’m not sure I deserved it; maybe it was a nod to how hard I worked, showing up for every practice and just being present. It felt good. It was the first time I’d really won an award. Being 5’1”, in athletics, you don’t really get many awards.
“That taught me to show up, work hard, and bring energy every day—something I carry into the office now.”
Eventually, however, Rawlins was outshone on the court by another player. She lost her starting position and decided to walk away from the sport altogether.
“I quit,” she admits. “It was a decision that took a lot out of me personally. But I realized that I’m not a great sit-on-the-bench kind of person. And I recognized that the girl who replaced me as a starter was better than I was.
“But I knew I couldn’t be content just sitting on the sidelines. So, walking away became more about capturing some of my time back and not losing passion or becoming frustrated with a sport that I loved and that had meant so much to me.”
Empathy & Engagement in Rawlins’ Banking Vision
As a teenager, Rawlins had a formative experience working at Talbots, the national chain of women’s apparel shops. “They were relentless about customer service,” she recalls. “When we opened our doors, we had to greet every client. And you couldn’t be hardcore sales. You had to make sure that you were engaging with clients as they indicated—overtly or subtly—how they wanted to be engaged.”
This early career experience in retail also taught Rawlins the value of self-sacrifice. Whereas other retail chain employees might count the hours until quitting time and zip out the door, Rawlins did not. In honoring Talbots’ culture of service, she often put in extra hours on the retail floor. “When it was time for the shop to close,” she recalls, “it was corporate policy not to inform customers still in the store that it was closing time. They had to be allowed to shop until they were done, and we had to remain onsite, ready to help them if needed.”
To this day, the impact of that customer-first business model continues to resonate with her. “That job taught me how important it is to make people feel valued,” she admits. “It helped form an interest in excellent customer service. It’s all about how you make people feel, how you can engage with a client and enable them to have an experience rather than just navigate a transaction.”
The liberal arts education at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, deepened her intellectual flexibility. Initially targeting a broadcast journalism career (àla NBC/CBS anchor Jane Pauly), she redirected her professional interests. “It was a dual major in communications and economics that eventually steered me toward banking,” she explains.
Building a Banking Career: Rawlins’ Foundational Principles
Rawlins began her financial services career at Household Bank (Columbus) at age 22, opening new retail accounts. During her first December on the job, she inquired about taking time off to return to Syracuse to spend the holiday with her family.
“I presented it to my boss,” she relates, “telling him that I’d never been away from my family at Christmas before.” The long-ago response has stayed with her.
“He said, ‘Ilaria, you’ll find that in this industry the pendulum swings. There are times when we’re going to be able to help you with requests like this. And times when we’re going to ask for help from you. We’re going to help you this time; you can go home for Christmas. But keep in mind that, sometime in the future when the bank is short, we’re going to need your help.’”
That mindset stayed with Rawlins as her career advanced. “That has stuck with me,” she states. “Professional life has a pendulum that swings back and forth in terms of needing support or supporting others. I try to maintain the idea that there might be hard times and there might be easier times, but the demands placed on employees should generally come back to being equal.”
Learning Grace
These early leadership roles also imbued Rawlins with a professional asset that may seem surprising in the dollars-and-cents world of financial services: grace.
“I was a young assistant manager,” she relates. “And I had a younger banker working for me with three kids. And if one of them got sick, she needed to stay home.
“And I remember saying to her: ‘Look, we need you in the branch. We’re open for business. I need you here.’”
This exchange took on a whole new meaning years later when Rawlins became a parent herself. “I came to realize that life isn’t just black-and-white. We have to find a way to live in the gray. We have to learn to give people grace.
“I’d love to be able to find that colleague and apologize for not having the perspective of having my own kids and balancing all that. Early on in my career, I may not have been big on grace. But I’ve grown into valuing it.”
From Banker to Bank Builder & Innovator
Rawlins’ leadership journey advanced quickly. After rising through the ranks at Household Bank, and despite a few mergers and acquisitions, she joined Ohio Savings Bank in 1996 where she gained valuable experience.
In 2006 Rawlins was tapped to be a founding member of the team at First Bexley Bank. “I came in 30 days before we opened,” she says. “It was my first experience in building a bank from scratch, and I wore every hat imaginable: marketing, HR, compliance, treasury management.”
The startup experience shaped her understanding of what a bank could be. “Community banking allows you to personalize every interaction. My clients had my cell number. They could text or call me on a Saturday night—and I’d answer.” That sense of always being readily accessible to bank clients is surely rooted in Rawlins’ retail experience, where she patiently waited for shoppers to finish their browsing before shuttering Talbot’s for the night.
Following First Bexley’s acquisition, Rawlins remained with the successor bank, First Financial. But she knew she needed something different.
Founding Fortuna: A Mission-Driven Community Bank
In December 2024, Rawlins became the founding CEO of Fortuna Bank. It’s a modern community bank in Grandview Heights (a suburb of Columbus, Ohio) with a strong relational model and a bold mission to be majority women-owned.
“We knew women oftentimes don’t see private equity investment opportunities,” Rawlins recalls. “And that $50,000–$100,000 was going to feel hard or big or intimidating.
“So, we positioned the entry point to $10,000 intentionally. We wanted to make it feel much less intimidating, and that you could be part of something really cool at a not-crazy-high level.
“We also knew that we wanted a large shareholder base because on day-one, our shareholders are day-one customers.
“They are now our day-one brand ambassadors,” she states. “We wanted women to see themselves as owners,” Rawlins says. “The result was impressive.”
The startup phase included a rigorous capital raise and a values-driven staff recruiting process. According to Rawlins, “Everyone on our team is someone I either knew or selected intentionally. We can’t afford apathy. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for career bankers to build something great.”
She also hopes to lead the charge, seeing more women rise in the industry. “Retail banking has a lot of women leaders. Commercial banking? Not so much. We need to change the way we think about leadership pipelines. Diverse teams—by gender, by background, by perspective—build better banks.”
She also praises the cooperative spirit among other Columbus-based community banks. “Some of our competitors have been incredibly generous because they can share our vision—sharing templates, tools, even staff advice. That’s the kind of ecosystem I want to be part of.”
Leading by Listening—and Learning
Rawlins holds daily 10 a.m. team huddles with her entire staff. “Everyone’s invited. No silos. If someone says they’re confused about where we’re headed, that’s a red flag—and we fix it fast.”
That responsiveness, she says, is a core part of building not just a business, but a culture. “We know that when we grow, we won’t be able to have every employee on every call. But if our values are centered around excellence in communication, we will figure out the best way for us to hold to that standard.”
She describes her leadership style as “fiery but fair,” driven by values of clarity, communication, and customer care. But behind the energy is deep humility. “I know I’m a risk-taker. That’s why I surround myself with people who ground me.”
Fortuna Bank’s Holistic Support for Women Entrepreneurs
Rawlins has ambitious goals for Fortuna’s first year: $50 million in assets and a path to profitability of around $68 million. But her longer-term vision is more relational than financial. “This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. We’re here to build lasting relationships with our clients and our community.”
This commitment even extends to businesses they can’t yet serve. “We’re still building out our SBA capabilities, but that doesn’t stop our chief lending officer from spending hours helping clients understand their options. Even if they ultimately get a loan somewhere else, they’ll remember that we helped.”
Her plans include a philanthropic arm focused on women and economic empowerment, as well as expanded commercial services. “We want to be the hub that connects women business owners with everything they need to thrive. We’ll get granular to the point of providing checklists for tasks and walking customers through the process. We want to hold their hands and make sure they have the appropriate connections to succeed. Do they need a financial planner? Do they need a CPA? We’ll connect the dots to those resources.”
The Human Side of a CEO
Encouraging females isn’t just a workweek priority for Rawlins. “I have two daughters,” she says, “one who is 22 and the other who is 16. I’ve spent the past three months teaching the 16-year-old how to drive. “She got her driver’s license a few weeks ago. And I don’t know … I think I’m already on high-blood pressure medication.”
The parental worry is understandable; all parents unleashing a newly licensed driver feel the same concern. But thus far, her daughter has been very compliant.
“My older girl likes to follow the rules,” Rawlins states. “But my younger one will negotiate, as most teenagers do. I’ll tell her, ‘Be home at 8:00.’ And she’ll ask, ‘How about 8:15?’ She just keeps pushing.
“I’ve thought about other careers I might have succeeded in, and teaching is definitely one of them,” she relates. “If I can teach a 16-year-old to drive without it making me nuts, I’ve done a decent job.”
Rawlins: Leading with Heart, Numbers & a United Team Vision
As much as she has succeeded in giving instructions, however, Rawlins continues to value her ability to learn. At this point in her long career, she’s quick to credit numerous mentors who have benefited her with their wisdom. These advisors include Fortuna Bank CFO Tony Stollings and several former managers.
Their influence has shaped her ongoing professional philosophy, honing it until she can describe it succinctly: “I try to make sure everyone on my team feels seen and supported,” Rawlins relates. “It’s not ‘we’ and ‘they’—it’s us.”
In Rawlins’ world, leading with heart is just as important as leading with numbers—and her successful team at Fortuna is proof of that.
