Bank Founder and CEO Emma Chappell was born February 18, 1941 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned her B.A. degree from Temple University in 1967; an M.A. degree from the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University in New Jersey. After graduating from college, Continental Bank placed her in its executive training program. By 1977, she was the first African American vice president and the first female vice president of a major bank in Pennsylvania. She organized the Model Cities Business and Commercial Project. In 1987, she left her job to open a bank. With the backing of prominent black Philadelphians, she became the first African-American woman in the United States to become CEO of a bank, the United Bank of Philadelphia. It opened in 1992. Chappell left in 2000. She was also Treasurer for Reverend Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign and director of the Rainbow Push Wall Street Project.
Alternative title
History Makers video oral history with Emma Chappell