Northwest Area Foundation

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Ms. Dorothy Bridges

Dorothy Bridges is a senior vice president responsible for community development and outreach at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, a position she assumed July 2011. Most recently, she was president and chief executive officer of City First Bank of D.C., a lending institution in Washington, D.C. that focuses on community development finance. Prior to that, she was president and CEO of and Franklin National Bank, a community bank located in Minneapolis. She is the only African-American woman to head a Minnesota bank, and one of only a few nationwide.

In 1979, Bridges began her banking career with First Bank System, where she held numerous positions, including president of a $150 million urban branch. In 1993, she became a senior consultant for Barefoot, Marrinan & Associates, a bank regulatory compliance-consulting firm headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. While there, she worked with other financial institutions across the country on bank regulatory compliance issues, specifically in the areas of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and Fair Lending. In 1995, she became vice president and chief credit officer for the Community Reinvestment Fund (CRF), a private not-for-profit corporation that securitizes economic development loans for secondary market investments.

Bridges currently serves as Board Chair for Northwest Area Foundation and is a board member for the National Endowment for Financial Education.  Her previous leadership roles include serving as recent chair of the American Bankers’ Association-Community Bankers’ Council. She was a trustee for the Minneapolis Foundation, was chair of the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches and long-term director for the Milestone Growth Fund Inc. She also served on the Twin Cities Local Initiative Support Corporation’s (LISC) Loan Advisory committee and chaired its Capacity Building committee.

The Business Journal named Bridges one of the Twin Cities most influential women in business in 1999. In 2000, she received the Women of Achievement Award from the Twin West Chamber of Commerce, and was named by Mpls./St. Paul Magazine as one of their “100 People to Watch – Minnesota’s Rising Stars". She was recognized by Finance and Commerce, a weekly business publication in Minnesota, as one of the 2002 Top Women in Finance. Her work in the urban community earned her the Minneapolis University Rotary Club’s Citizen of the Year in 2003 and the Iota Phi Lambda Sorority Inc.’s Business Woman of the Year in 2005. In 2009, the Washington Business Journal reported her as one of Ten People To Watch, noted for her work as an advocate for the poorest neighborhoods and the American Banker placed her in their 25 Women To Watch.