Discover recruits new CLO

Hope Mehlman to join the company from Bank of the West

Discover Financial Services has named Hope Mehlman as chief legal officer (CLO) and general counsel, effective January 9.

Mehlman will join Discover from Bank of the West, where she has been executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. San Francisco-based Bank of the West is a subsidiary of French bank BNP Paribas and Mehlman has also been corporate secretary at BNP Paribas USA.

She joined Bank of the West in September 2020 having previously been executive vice president, corporate secretary, chief governance officer and deputy general counsel at Regions Financial Corporation, based in Birmingham, Alabama. In that role she won Corporate Secretary’s 2019 Corporate Governance Award for governance professional of the year (large cap). She has also been board co-chair of the Council of Institutional Investors.

Roger Hochschild, Discover’s CEO and president, says in a statement: ‘Hope’s experience working in the financial services industry and supporting business strategy will enable her to contribute to Discover’s success and effectively lead our regulatory and legislative efforts.’

Mehlman succeeds Wanji Walcott, who joined Pinterest in November 2022 as CLO. Walcott had been executive vice president, CLO and general counsel at Discover since 2019. During her time with the company, she managed its legal and government relations teams, co-led the company’s innovation initiative and worked with the board on strategy and risk-management protocol. Before Discover, Walcott was general counsel at PayPal.