Yet she wanted to be there for her husband as he faced a series of unexpected health challenges and for her ailing 91-year-old mother in Los Angeles.
Seeing Hao step off the biggest stage of her career inspired Lee to do the same. It’s not the first time people who have reached the top and found that life happens and priorities change. But it’s probably the road less traveled because it takes a certain amount of courage and confidence to pull it off. Some people will take a break, others will take a step back. Lee prefers to call her shift a “pivot.”
After serving three years as the top M&T leader in Massachusetts, Lee started this week as the CEO of St. Mary’s Credit Union based in Marlborough, a job that entails a lot less traveling and far fewer branches to manage — seven instead of 64.
At first, Lee couldn’t see herself going from a major commercial bank to a mid-sized credit union. But in a career that spanned both public and private sectors including serving as first deputy treasurer and general counsel in the state Treasurer’s office, she realized she had never been a CEO before.
“I get to learn how to run and operate a bank,” she said.
Most people would have just stayed at the same company in a lesser role or taken a sabbatical. M&T, headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., gave Lee those options, but she knew it wouldn’t be right for her.
“This was a me issue,” Lee explained. “I can’t do anything part-time or dial back. So if it’s an ocean, I will fill it. If it is a pond, I will fill it. If it is a tea cup, I will fill it … For what I need now, I need to be in a pond where I kind of cap what full looks like.”
But there was also the clarity that comes when your family needs you.
“Three years from now, my mom … she may not be here,” Lee said, getting emotional. “I can’t look back, and say I had to host an event, or I had to go to a meeting in Buffalo. This can’t be the reason why I’m not there.”
Hao, who was appointed by Governor Maura Healey, was equally clear-eyed about what was best for her and for the Commonwealth. Her teenage daughters needed more of her attention, as did her 80-year-old mother in California after a health scare sent her to the emergency room.
The timing felt right after the successful passage of a $4 billion economic development bill last November and before Healey’s reelection campaign kicked into high gear. Hao, who came from Bain Capital and the venture world, felt strongly that the economic secretary had to be “all in.”
“I told the governor someone else will do the job way better than me,” Hao recalled saying, “but only I can take care of my mom or spend time with my kids.”
After her departure, Hao heard from others who were also contemplating a career pause as well as retired executives who wished they had taken a step back to deal with family matters. The burden of caregiving often falls on women, and many dropped out of the workforce during the pandemic when schools and daycares closed.
What provided clarity to Hao was something she learned at Amazon, after the e-commerce giant acquired Somerville online pharmacy PillPack, where she served as chief financial officer and chief operating officer. Amazon, Hao said, viewed the majority of decisions in life as “two-way doors” — if one door doesn’t work out, you go to other one.
“There are very few things in life that are one-way doors,” Hao said. “The thing that I think about the most [with] the one-way door is the time with the people you love. Once someone dies, that’s the ultimate one-way door. You’re not going to get that time back.”
For employers, it can be hard to let high performers walk out the door. Hao promised Healey that she would help recruit an exceptional successor, and she did: Prominent Cambridge venture capitalist Eric Paley joins the administration in September.
M&T is evaluating candidates to replace Lee. She was promoted to regional president in April 2022, just as M&T completed its acquisition of People’s United Financial, where Lee was an executive.
With her deep roots in the community, Lee emerged quickly as someone who could help the Buffalo bank raise its profile in Massachusetts, said M&T CEO René Jones in an interview.
When Lee first told Jones she needed a change, he wanted to understand why. And as much as he did not want her to leave, he realized it was what was best for her.
“After I listened to Grace, I thought to myself, ‘Well, OK, here we go. This is actually going to work out,’ ” Jones recalled, as we sat in M&T office’s on the 18th floor of Winthrop Center. “You’re part of the M&T family, but you’re going to go out and do things that make us super proud.”
During the interview process with St. Mary’s, Lee was upfront about her need to take a less-consuming job. It was then up to the St. Mary’s search committee to suss out whether Lee would find the role fulfilling. And when it moved forward with an offer, there were new concerns: Could the 112-year-old institution that started out as small parish credit union afford Lee, and what if M&T decided to counter?
Ultimately, Lee and St. Mary’s found themselves on the same page about her next chapter.
“She picked us because she’ll have a very meaningful impact on the organization and on the communities we serve,” said Jerry Richer, a retired attorney who serves as St. Mary’s board chair. “She won’t have other people above her like she did at M&T to fall back on … But I’m confident she’ll do what she has done in the past, and that is meet the challenge.”
Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.
