If you were in the room at BankSpaces 2026 when Rebekah Sigfrids took the stage, you were in for a treat. As Head of Global Financial Center Design and Innovation at Bank of America, Sigfrids brought a refreshing creative energy to a conversation that doesn't always get the attention it deserves — what it actually takes to design bank branches that feel vibrant, local, and deeply human.
Her career path alone is worth noting. Sigfrids cut her teeth designing retail concepts for Timberland, LensCrafters, and Victoria's Secret before leading in-house design at Sephora.
"My career has gone from bras to beauty to banking," she quipped from the stage — and the thread connecting all three is more meaningful than it sounds. They're all spaces built around deeply personal experiences.
Before diving into the work itself, Sigfrids made a point that stuck: you can't do great creative work without the right organizational structure behind it. When she joined Bank of America, she inherited a fragmented setup — a handful of internal designers and an external rollout team working with 13 different architectural firms across the country. None of those firms had a deep, consistent relationship with the bank.
Her fix? She built a dedicated internal team from scratch — an organizational designer, an architectural illustrator, a design standards manager, and an innovations designer — and paired that back to a smaller group of architectural partners who could build real institutional knowledge. "You have to be a good client to get good work," she said simply.
Sigfrids walked through four standout projects that have helped shape Bank of America's design direction.
The Boylston Street, Boston branch was her first prototype out the door — intentionally conservative, scalable, and designed to build internal trust before taking bigger swings.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn was where things got interesting. The space was a former metal working studio, and rather than gutting it, her team leaned into its character — white-painted wood ceilings, concrete floors, and preserved sculptures from the original tenants that now hang inside the branch. It was a turning point that gave the team the internal backing to keep pushing creatively.
Palm Springs might be the most remarkable story of the four. A 1959 building that was initially slated for a low-scope renovation ended up being a full historic restoration — terrazzo floors brought back to life, custom lighting that honored the original architecture, and a grand opening that drew the community out in droves. The branch ultimately won a local historic preservation award.
Bryant Park flagship in New York — a corner location at 6th Avenue and 42nd Street, that Sigfrids described with barely contained excitement. A Calder-esque sculpture anchors the corner and slowly moves throughout the day. Original artwork by local New York City artists lines the walls. A jungle of plants has happily taken over.
"We're actually building what we designed," she said her team kept saying during construction, half in disbelief.
The final piece of Sigfrids' talk was about the toolbox that makes all of this repeatable across BofA’s 3,700 branches. Custom patterns, curated artwork, local murals, and exterior activations, all supported by systems and vendor relationships that allow for quick pivots without sacrificing quality.
The takeaway? Creativity at scale isn't a steep mountain to climb — but it does require intentional structure, deep relationships, and a team that genuinely cares about every project that comes through the design door.