Michael Speaker has joined City National Bank, which merged with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in 2015, as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary.
He succeeds Jared Wolff, who left City National earlier this year to become president, CEO and a director of Banc of California.
Speaker is based in Los Angeles, overseeing the bank’s legal and corporate administrative group, which comprises legal and corporate governance, community reinvestment and corporate security. He reports to City National CEO Kelly Coffey and RBC general counsel David Onorato.
Before joining the company, Speaker was deputy general counsel at Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition to leading the legal teams supporting the bank’s commercial banking, private banking and credit business lines, he advised on M&A matters and served as secretary and chief risk officer for five subsidiary boards of directors.
He previously served as deputy chief counsel at the US Department of the Treasury, where he led the corporate legal department for the Office of Financial Stability. He negotiated Troubled Asset Relief Program investments in banks and other financial institutions in the wake of the financial crisis and helped draft sections of the Dodd-Frank Act.
‘Michael has extensive experience supporting financial institutions, as well as thorough regulatory expertise,’ Coffey says in a statement. ‘He will lead the exceptional legal and corporate administrative teams that contribute to City National’s growth and stability and help our clients succeed.’
Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
