Banking on Family
How sisters from Buffalo ended up in starring roles at two local banks and why it matters
Originally published on Buffalo Business First
By Dan Miner
While it's fairly unique for siblings to hold leadership positions at different banks in Buffalo, Trina and Kawanza are even more rare because they are Black women in a male-dominated industry.
Their careers are anything but a coincidence.
In some ways, it centers on that moment on Sanford Street in the 1970s, with Trina drilling her younger sister, a small story in a much more involved yarn about what happens when people support each other. That includes parents, neighbors and professional mentors.
The sisters had a middle class upbringing up in tight-knit Central Park, then a bustling working-class neighborhood in Buffalo. They persevered through the sudden death of their father (Trina was 15 and Kawanza was 7), graduated from the Buffalo public school system and then climbed the Buffalo banking hierarchy until they landed in positions of substantial influence.
Publicly, they have been careful to stake out their own pathways and reputations, to the point that many people who have known them both for years don’t know they are sisters.
