When Erin Piacenti walked into Bank of America on Monday after five months on maternity leave, she found pink daisies sitting on her desk. Welcome signs were strung around the office she shared with a few teammates. Piacenti showed them photos of Madison, her newborn daughter, before settling in to read case law.
That afternoon, Piacenti was fatally stabbed in Times Square in what police described as an unprovoked attack. She was 32.
Though Piacenti only started as a vice president in the firm’s Americas Business Selection and Conflicts group around 18 months ago, she’d already made an impact on the small team. Hallie Ziesmer, the head of the roughly 20-person group, described Piacenti as a “superstar” in conversations with senior management before her death, and remembers interviewing Piacenti at the end of 2024.
“It was probably one of the shortest interviews, because I think within three minutes I wanted to hire her,” Ziesmer, who was Piacenti’s direct boss, said on Friday. “She was obviously very intelligent, very capable. She was polished but down-to-earth.”
Piacenti was attacked by Pamela Cisneros, 49, who also injured another victim before officers shot her and killed her at the scene.
There’s been a wave of support on and beyond Wall Street since the event, and a GoFundMe to help her daughter has raised more than $800,000. Many Bank of America employees have contributed, a spokesperson for the bank said.
Before joining Bank of America, Piacenti worked at the law firm Davis Polk for more than three years, focusing on mergers and acquisitions for part of that time. She started her career as a buyer at Bloomingdale’s and graduated magna cum laude from Fordham Law. Piacenti had a niche focus at the bank, helping investment bankers prepare disclosure documents for companies gearing up for an M&A transaction and clients navigate a thicket of regulations. A colleague remembers her as resourceful, always finding creative solutions on her own.
Piacenti would mentor more junior teammates who didn’t have the same legal expertise, Ziesmer said. Many of them have spent time in Ziesmer’s office this week, remembering how detailed and caring Piacenti was with her help. One junior employee who sat across from Piacenti said in an email that she reviewed much of their work, and had offered personal advice on top of professional tips during their occasional coffees.
“She could have, on some days, left the office to be home, but she would spend time with juniors. She wanted them to understand and share a passion for what she was doing. She really enjoyed it,” Ziesmer said.
Piacenti would often talk about visiting her four younger siblings, or books, or Disney. When the team attended a cooking class last year, the same colleague who admired Piacenti’s resourcefulness said she made the best dish (and helped save them, an inadequate chef). When another colleague ran into her on the Q train one morning, she was thrilled to introduce them to her husband, Frank, whom she talked about all the time.
Around the holidays, Piacenti brought dozens of cookies into the office after she and Frank hosted the family’s Christmas cookie party at their new home in New Jersey.
Ziesmer says the team now plans to bring in cookies every year.
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