ABA Names New CFO, New Head of Marketing

The American Bankers Association today announced that Lia Fordjour has been named the association’s new chief financial officer. Fordjour, who previously served as ABA’s senior vice president for planning and reporting, began her new role this week. As CFO, she will provide strategic financial leadership for ABA and its subsidiaries to ensure the integrity of financial operations, compliance with regulatory requirements, and transparent reporting to the association’s board and executive leadership. The position shapes financial strategy, risk management and investment decisions and serves as ABA’s controller.
 
“Lia is a strategic financial leader whose experience spans major nonprofits, large-scale media organizations and ABA’s own operations,” said Karin Flynn, ABA’s chief finance and administration officer. “Her strong command of financial reporting, budgeting and internal controls — as well as her proven ability to guide organizations through growth and change — make her a great fit for this important role.”
 
Fordjour brings more than 20 years of financial leadership experience. Since joining ABA in 2022, she has overseen the development of the association’s consolidated annual budget, led coordination of annual audit and tax deliverables, prepared monthly financial reporting for executive leadership and the ABA Board, and managed key forecasting and internal cost allocation models. She has also served as Treasurer of the ABA Foundation. Prior to her time at ABA, Fordjour served as chief financial officer for the United Nations Foundation, where she oversaw all accounting, budgeting, contracting and fiscal reporting. She also spent over a decade at Discovery, Inc., rising to vice president of financial planning & analysis, managing multimillion dollar operating and capital budgets, leading cost reduction initiatives and developing new financial forecasting models adopted company wide. Earlier in her career, she held financial leadership roles at CNN, Kraft Heinz and Baxter/Allegiance Healthcare.
 
Fordjour holds a CPA, an MBA from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Science in accounting from the University of Illinois.

New Head of Marketing

ABA also announced that Tifany Pedersen has been named the association’s new head of marketing. In this role, Pedersen, who will join the association next week, will lead ABA's team of marketing, digital and web professionals, overseeing ABA’s marketing of the association's advocacy priorities as well as ABA's industry-leading education, training and events. In this role, Pedersen's responsibilities will include ABA.com and ABA’s other web properties, social media platforms and multiple digital campaigns. She will also oversee the organization’s email marketing, overall brand strategy, and membership marketing efforts. 
 
“We're excited to have Tifany join ABA and bring her wide range of experience and skills to our talented marketing team," said Peter Cook, ABA’s chief communications officer. “Her deep knowledge of bank marketing, large scale-consumer brands and today's digital tools will help us advance our advocacy priorities and market ABA's substantial training, education and events business. She will also be a great resource for our member banks looking for marketing advice.”

Pedersen comes to ABA from Amazon, where she most recently served as head of employer brand marketing for Alexa and Amazon Devices, directing end to end brand strategy and integrated campaigns and overseeing marketing optimization across digital, web and social channels. Before joining Amazon, Pedersen was senior global employer brand director for Marriott International, where she built a global brand strategy for 30 hotel brands across 120 countries, launched research-driven marketing campaigns and delivered award-winning digital marketing initiatives. She previously spent a decade at Capital One, where she led B2B and B2C brand marketing teams, executed data driven digital campaigns and oversaw major brand integrations. Pedersen is also familiar with the trade association world from her prior work as a marketing manager at the Association of Financial Professionals. 

Pedersen holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of Vermont. She is also fluent in Spanish and serves as a guest lecturer at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.