FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2021
CONTACT: Victoria Rosengarten
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President and Chief Executive Officer Esther George recently announced the following officer promotions and organizational changes:
Renu Mehra has been promoted to senior vice president and chief information officer of the Retail Payments Office. In this role, she will lead the Retail Payments Technology Services Division and join the Bank’s Management Committee, which is responsible for the Bank’s strategic planning and policy direction. Mehra will oversee the technology platforms, functions, and projects supporting both Automated Clearing House and check payments that are processed and settled by the Federal Reserve.
Mehra has been with the Kansas City Fed since 1991. After serving in analytical and supervisory roles, she was named assistant vice president of Retail Payment Services in 2002. She was promoted to vice president in 2012 and was named group vice president in the Retail Payments Technology Services Division in March 2020. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Panjab University in India and an MBA in accounting from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is also a graduate of the Banking Administration Institute’s Graduate School of Bank Operations and Technology.
Porcia Block has been promoted to senior vice president and general auditor. In this capacity, Block will lead the Audit Division and be the primary liaison to the Bank's Board of Directors for risk management and governance as well as serve as an advisor to the Bank’s Management Committee.
Block began her Bank tenure in 1998, and she joined the audit department in 2003. She left in 2004 to pursue additional roles in auditing and banking and returned to the Bank in 2010. Since then she has led a variety of teams and gained numerous leadership promotions with increased responsibilities. She was most recently appointed vice president in the Supervision and Risk Management Division in 2019. She holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Creighton University and an MBA from Benedictine College. She is also a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking in Boulder, Colorado.
Additional leadership announcements at the Bank include:
Denise Connor, who has served most recently as senior vice president and chief information officer for the Retail Product Office (RPO) with leadership responsibility for the Retail Payments Technology Services (RPTS) Division, has been appointed Tenth District chief information officer and has assumed leadership responsibility for the Bank’s Information Technology and Customer Support Division. Connor joined the Bank in 1987 as an intern and returned full-time in 1988. She was named assistant vice president in 1998. In 2000, she was named vice president to establish the Central Check User Support function as part of the Federal Reserve System’s check standardization initiative. She was appointed senior vice president and a member of Management Committee in 2009. She holds an MBA in finance, a bachelor’s of journalism, and an associate bachelor’s in economics, all from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Josias Aleman, who has most recently served as senior vice president and general auditor, will now lead a newly formed Financial Services Division, comprised of Wholesale Operations, Cash Services, and the Financial Services Policy Committee Support Office. The creation of this division is in response to the evolving Federal Reserve Financial Services landscape. Aleman began his career with the Bank in 1994. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and an MBA from the University of Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the Stonier School of Banking and is a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors. He also is a certified internal auditor and a certified information systems auditor.
As the regional headquarters of the nation’s central bank, the Kansas City Fed and its branch offices in Denver, Oklahoma City and Omaha serve the seven states of the Tenth District: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, northern New Mexico and western Missouri.
