Santander, HSBC and Cross River Bank: Bankers on the move

July 28, 2019 9:35 PM

During a slow summer, a handful of banks managed to hire away multiple executives from competitors and introduce new leadership.

The holding company for Santander Bank and the auto lender Santander Consumer created several new leadership roles, including naming Timothy Wennes, the West Coast president and head of regional banking at San Francisco-based MUFG Union Bank, as president and CEO of the $74.5 billion-asset Santander Bank.

Cross River bank managed to attract several employees from student loan refinancing company Laurel Road to join its capital markets team, while Signature Bank went on its own hiring spree, luring away commercial bank officers from several competitors across the country.

Embattled Deutsche Bank continues to see top talent depart. During the summer, its investment bank arm saw the departure of several senior executives, with more vacancies expected to follow.

HSBC USA recruited new leadership from the ranks of Citigroup. Veteran banker Michael Roberts, who has also been Citi’s global head of corporate banking and capital management, would succeed Patrick Burke, 57, in October.

Scroll down to see the highlights of bankers on the move this summer.

Santander Bank's new CEO is longtime MUFG Union executive

The holding company for Santander Bank and the auto lender Santander Consumer made a series of leadership changes on July 24 that are scheduled to take effect in September, including a new chief executive to run the Boston-based bank.

Timothy Wennes, the West Coast president and head of regional banking at San Francisco-based MUFG Union Bank, was named president and CEO of the $74.5 billion-asset Santander Bank.

At the $133 billion-asset MUFG Union Bank, Wennes oversees commercial banking, real estate industries, consumer banking and wealth management. He was also in charge of the bank’s enterprise marketing and corporate social responsibility programs. Wennes joined the bank, a unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in Tokyo, in 2008. At Santander, he will succeed Duke Dayal, who was named CFO of Santander U.K.

Additionally, Juan Carlos Alvarez was promoted to CFO of both the holding company, Santander U.S., and Santander Bank. Alvarez was the chief financial officer at Santander Consumer. Fahmi Karam, currently the head of pricing and analytics, will succeed Alvarez as CFO.

Also, Shawn Allgood, currently an executive vice president at Chrysler Capital, will become head of Chrysler Capital and all auto relationships at Santander Consumer, effective immediately. Santander Chrysler is a preferred lender of Fiat Chrysler and Chrysler Capital is an internal unit that arranges loans for Fiat Chrysler customers.

Citi lending chief will head HSBC's U.S. business

Citigroup’s chief lending officer will become the president and chief executive of HSBC USA in the fall.

On July 8, the bank announced Michael Roberts, who has also been Citi’s global head of corporate banking and capital management, would succeed Patrick Burke, 57, in October.

Roberts has been with Citi for 34 years and held his most recent titles there since 2010. He will join the $177.5 billion-asset HSBC USA as a group managing director and will report to John Flint, the chief executive of HSBC Group. Roberts will also sit on the group management board.

Burke has been president and CEO of HSBC North America Holdings Inc. and chairman of HSBC Bank USA, HSBC USA and HSBC Global Asset Management (USA), since 2014.

Burke joined HSBC in 1989 as deputy director, mergers and acquisitions, and vice president of strategy and development. He has held a number of senior leadership positions with HSBC Finance Corp. (HFC) Bank in the U.K., HFC Canada and HSBC Card and Retail Services.

Citi is said to have begun searching for Roberts' successor, but it has not yet announced his successor.

Cross River Bank lures several execs from student refinancing firm

Cross River Bank in Teaneck, N.J., which focuses on servicing fintechs, hired several employees from the student loan refinancing company Laurel Road to its capital markets team in June.

Laurel Road was acquired by KeyBank in April.

The executives joining Cross River from Laurel Road include team leader Noah Cooper, who becomes Cross River’s senior vice president and head of capital markets, and Rahul Jha, Joshua Karlgaard and Ryan Callahan, who will manage the bank’s balance sheet and secondary market activities, including securitization and loan pool sales.

This team members were hired for their expertise in loan origination, loan portfolio management and securitization.

Signature Bank goes on commercial bank officer hiring spree

By the end of June, Signature Bank had lured a dozen new commercial loan officers from banks across the country.

The $48.6 billion-asset bank recruited bankers away from Wells Fargo, PacWest Bancorp, Comerica and Western Alliance Bancorp., according to a June 25 news release. The new executives will focus on originating loans to private equity and venture capital funds.

In Signature’s private-equity group, the bank named two new managing directors, both from Wells Fargo. Charlie Owens will be based in Charlotte, N.C., and Brad Boland will be based in San Francisco.

For its venture capital division, Signature hired eight bankers from the Square 1 unit of PacWest and two additional bankers from Comerica and Western Alliance’s Bridge Bank division. The new Signature bankers will be based in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Durham, N.C. The officers’ experience is primarily in the life sciences and technology sectors.

Deutschse Bank continues bleeding top talent

In late June, two of Deutsche Bank's senior dealmakers in New York, Mark Hantho and John Eydenberg, were reported by Reuters to have been recruited by Citigroup to join the banking, capital markets and advisory division as vice chairmen.

The departures came after it was reported by the Financial Times that Edward Sankey, Deutsche Bank’s co-head of European equity capital markets and global head of equity syndicate, planned to leave. Reports had Sankey accepting a position at HSBC.

Deutsche was expected to see other senior executive departures. CEO Christian Sewing “is planning sweeping changes to his top management, considering replacing finance chief James von Moltke and investment banking head Garth Ritchie, as he purges executives who rose under his predecessor.”

Wells Fargo exec joins Eagle board

Eagle Bancorp in Bethesda, Md., announced a series of board changes in July, including naming a former Wells Fargo executive who once oversaw Wells' conduct management office.

The $8.4 billion-asset company said in a press release July 2 that Theresa LaPlaca would be joining its board. In addition to the conduct management office, which was created to resolve issues identified in the San Francisco company's sales and reporting practices, LaPlaca was also the chief financial officer of Wells' wealth and investment management division.

LaPlaca will chair a risk committee that Eagle's board is forming.

Additionally, Lynn Hackney, Leslie Ludwig and Benjamin Soto, who are directors at EagleBank, were added to the company's board. Eagle also disclosed that Dudley Dworken and Donald Rogers had resigned from its board. Rogers will continue to chair the EagleBank Foundation.

CVB Financial head steps down

After a decadelong run, Christopher Myers will retire as president and chief executive of CVB Financial next spring, the Ontario, Calif., community bank announced July 19.

Myers, 57, who was the $11.3 billion-asset company's CEO since 2006, will step down March 15 and remain as a consultant through Dec. 31, 2020.

“I believe it is the right time for me to step aside and help the bank transition to new leadership,” Myers said in a press release.

CVB said it has begun the process to find its next leader. The board has formed a committee to oversee the transition process and will engage an outside executive search firm to evaluate internal and external candidates.

Ex-Freddie CEO joins Harvard center

After resigning from Freddie Mac, former CEO Donald Layton joined the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies in July as a senior industry fellow focused on housing finance reform.

Layton, who joined Freddie as CEO in 2012, has spent more than 40 years in the financial services industry, holding roles at JPMorgan Chase and Mastercard, among others.

He told American Banker in October his tenure at Freddie was marked by “making the companies work well in conservatorship,” from increasing credit risk transfer initiatives to increasing the government-sponsored enterprise’s profitability.

The center noted that Michael Stegman, the former senior policy adviser for housing at the National Economic Council during the Obama administration, will also join as a senior fellow, where he will comment on Democratic presidential candidates’ housing policy proposals.