U.S. Bancorp (USB) Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference 2026 June 10, 2026 9:45 AM EDT
Company Participants
Gunjan Kedia – President, CEO & Chairman
John Stern – Vice Chair & Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Manan Gosalia – Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Presentation
Manan Gosalia
Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Okay. Up next, we have U.S. Bancorp, and I’m delighted to have with us today Gunjan Kedia, Chairman and CEO of U.S. Bancorp; and John Stern, Vice Chair and CFO. Thanks so much for joining us.
Gunjan Kedia
President, CEO & Chairman
It’s a pleasure.
Question-and-Answer Session
Manan Gosalia
Morgan Stanley, Research Division
So Gunjan, let’s start with you’ve completed your first full year as CEO. And as you reflect on the first year of leading the company, what have some of the biggest lessons been that you’ve taken away? And I guess what are you most focused on for the next phase of execution for U.S. Bancorp?
Gunjan Kedia
President, CEO & Chairman
Well, thank you for hosting us, and congratulations, Manan. And it’s been a very real honor and a pleasure to be leading a wonderful bank. Just over 12 months back when I stepped into the role, our focus was very much on delivering the medium-term targets that we had committed to during our Investor Day. So that’s what sort of we got very focused on.
So what did we do? The first was positive operating leverage. There was a lot of question marks around the efficiency ratio. And over the last 2 years, we brought our efficiency ratio down by 4% or so and delivered very strong positive operating leverage. The second was fee growth. As you know, our franchise is unique in being very fee heavy and not just the size of the fee base, but also the mix and the quality of the fee