Sovereign Bank Names Rosalin Acosta Managing Director of Wealth Management

Sovereign Bank today announced that Rosalin Acosta, executive vice president, has been named managing director of the Wealth Management Division. Based in Boston, Acosta will oversee a team providing wealth management and private banking services to individual, corporate and institutional clients throughout Sovereign’s footprint.

Sovereign also announced that Ira Brower, executive vice president and current managing director for the Wealth Management Division, will retire from the bank to pursue other interests on December 1, 2007. Until that date, Brower will serve in an advisory capacity and will assist with transitioning the business to new management. Brower brought trust and wealth management services to Sovereign in 1999 with the acquisition of Peoples Bancorp and its subsidiary Manchester Trust of which he was president.

Previously, Acosta was executive vice president and director of Sovereign Bank’s Government Banking unit. Under her stewardship, the unit increased its market share and quadrupled in size. She joined Sovereign Bank in 2000 serving as regional sales director of cash management services for business banking.

Prior to joining Sovereign Bank, Acosta was a senior vice president and team leader for Fleet Bank where she led a middle-market lending group in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. During her 21 years in the banking industry she held a number of sales and management positions in private banking, retail banking, cash management sales and commercial lending at Sovereign, Fleet, Bank of Boston and Eastern Bank.

Acosta has long been committed to community and public policy initiatives to find solutions to social issues. In 2005 she was appointed by former Massachusetts Speaker of the House, Thomas Finneran, to the Healthcare Disparities Commission. In addition, she is on the board of the State Office of Minority and Women Business Assistance Board of Appeals.

Acosta serves on the board of the New England Council and the Board of Advisors for the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting. She also serves as vice chair of the North Shore Chamber of Commerce and will assume chairmanship of the board in 2009.

A native of Cuba, Acosta earned a bachelors of arts from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She resides in Amesbury, Mass., with her five children.