Our expert team is highly respected by industry leaders, regulatory authorities, and central banks, and it is unique in its breath of experience and expertise in technology, M&A, regulatory domain, and board matters.
Collectively, Secura/Isaac professionals have many decades of experience and held key senior positions at U.S. state and federal regulatory agencies, and leading financial and advisory institutions.
CHAIRMAN
Bill Isaac has an unparalleled career in the financial industry and public service, spanning over 50 years. He served as Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 1978 through 1985, working to maintain stability during the banking and thrift crises of the 1980s, when over 3,000 banks and thrifts failed. Today, Bill is a leading commentator and consultant to financial institutions and governments. He is the author of Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America with a foreword by Paul Volcker. Mr. Isaac’s articles are published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Times, American Banker, and other leading publications.
Bill Isaac headed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 1978 through 1985, during the banking and thrift crises of the 1980s. He worked closely with the late Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Paul Volcker, helping to maintain stability in the financial system during one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. banking history, when over 3,000 banks and thrifts failed, including many of the largest in the nation. Bill was appointed to the board of the FDIC by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate at the age of 34 and was named Chairman by President Reagan two years later, making him the youngest FDIC board member and chairman in history. Bill also served as chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (1983-85), as a member of the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee (1981-85), and as a member of the Vice President’s Task Group on Regulation of Financial Services (1984).
In addition to his service as FDIC Chairman, Bill Isaac has decades of experience in regulatory counseling and risk management services. He founded The Secura Group, a leading consulting firm, in 1986. Secura was acquired by FTI Consulting in 2011, where he served as senior managing director. Bill then partnered with Howard Milstein in the financial services business, serving on the boards of New York Private Bank & Trust and Emigrant Bank, as well as serving as Chairman of Sarasota Private Trust and Cleveland Private Trust. Bill is focused on expanding the trust business throughout the US and on developing a significant financial services consulting firm of which Blue SaaS Solutions will be an important part.
Bill Isaac is former Chairman of Fifth Third Bancorp, one of the nation’s leading banking companies, and is a former board member at TSYS, a leading payment processing company (now part of Global Payments). He has also served on the boards of Amex Bank, The Associates (a finance company formerly owned by Ford Motor Company), TransUnion (a credit reporting company formerly owned by the Pritzker family), and MPs Group (a staffing firm now owned by Adecco).
Bill is involved extensively in thought leadership relating to the financial industry. He is the author of Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America with a foreword by Paul Volcker. His articles are published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, American Banker, Forbes, Financial Times, Washington Times, and other leading publications. He also appears regularly on television and radio, testifies before Congress, and is a speaker throughout the world.
Bill was formerly a senior partner of Arnold & Porter, which was a founding partner of The Secura Group. He left the firm in 1993 when Secura purchased Arnold & Porter’s interest in the firm. Before his appointment to the FDIC, Bill served as vice president, general counsel and secretary of First Kentucky National Corporation and its subsidiaries, including First National Bank of Louisville and First Kentucky Trust Company. Bill began his career with Foley & Lardner where he practiced general corporate law specializing in banking law.
Bill Isaac received a Distinguished Achievement Medal in 1995 from Miami University and a Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2013 from The Ohio State University. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Miami University Foundation and is a Life Member of the Board of Directors of The Ohio State University Foundation. In 2016 Bill co-founded with his former classmate the William Isaac & Michael Oxley Center for Business Leadership at Miami University.
SPECIAL ADVISOR – FAIR LENDING & CRA
As a Commissioned Compliance Examiner with over 32 years of experience in bank supervision with the FDIC, Barbara’s examiner experience includes 27 years in consumer compliance, with 13 years of experience as a Fair Lending Examination Specialist (FLEX) for the Atlanta Region of the FDIC. Barbara conducted examinations of financial institutions to determine level of compliance with consumer compliance deposit and lending regulations. She was responsible for examining a variety of financial institutions, ranging from smaller community banks to large complex institutions for compliance with financial and consumer compliance regulations.
Barbara also assessed the adequacy of consumer compliance management systems, including testing and monitoring of those programs, and reviewed several examination reports for consumer compliance and fair lending. Barbara’s experience also included the review of several CRA Protests associated with large banks’ merger applications, providing training to junior examiners, and service as acting Supervisory Examiner for the Atlanta Field Office on different occasions. Barbara presented findings and recommendations to senior management and board of directors during formal exit meetings.
Over the course of her tenure with the FDIC, Barbara held the following positions:
In the private sector, Barbara served as Compliance Officer & Senior Vice President for First State Bank in Holly Springs, MS.
She earned a bachelor of science degree in Business Administration/Computer Science from Rust College in Holly Springs, MS.
SENIOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR
Marlon Cook has over 35 years of regulatory experience and government service, having served with the Federal Deposit of Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for the majority of his career. Marlon is well-versed in and familiar with assessing and evaluating the safety and soundness of large, mid-sized and community banking organizations, with specific background and expertise in risk management, compliance, resolutions, and economic analysis.
Marlon retired from his position as Associate Director within the FDIC’s Division of Insurance and Research (DIR) in Washington, D.C. in 2020. Prior to serving in this executive role, he was the Regional Manager for the FDIC’s Division of Insurance and Research in Atlanta, Georgia.
Marlon also served as an Assistant Regional Director for the FDIC’s Risk Management and Supervision (RMS) Division in Atlanta, with responsibility for insured institutions in the State of Georgia, and Assistant to the Director for the FDIC’s RMS in Washington, D.C.
Marlon has been a keynote speaker at industry conferences and events, providing professional guidance and technical assistance to banking professionals to increase their understanding of the intersection of economics and bank analysis. He was a founding member of the FDIC Minority Depository Institutions (MDI) Task Force, which is still in place providing technical assistance to MDIs.
Mr. Cook earned an MBA from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Mount St. Mary’s University. He is also an honors graduate of the Graduate School of Banking of the South at Louisiana State University, and in 2007, graduated from the FDIC Senior Executive Leadership Program.
SENIOR ADVISOR
Jeff Curry is a seasoned financial services professional in risk, financial and regulatory management with experience in executive management roles, as a partner/managing director for major consulting firms, as a senior regulatory officer, and in progressively more responsible management positions at large financial institutions.
Jeff is specialized in building/enhancing enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks, investment and asset/liability management structures, risk reporting processes, risk assessments, financial modeling/measurement, and management/board reporting as a Chief Risk Officer and as a partner-level consultant. His work has included developing charters and enhanced reporting for Board and Board Risk Committee meetings, as well as for executive management committees (such as ERM Committees and Asset/Liability Committees).
During his tenure as Chief Risk Officer for a $12 billion bank, Jeff assisted in the resolution of SEC and Federal Reserve Bank investigations and shareholder lawsuits pertaining to alleged issues involving loans to insiders. Stock price doubled during his tenure.
Jeff led consulting teams as partner on hundreds of successful consulting projects at mid-size to large banking and non-banking institutions, including reporting of results to the Board of Directors and relevant Board and executive management committees. While at Deloitte, he specialized in consulting to the mid-size banking sector Led many projects that focused -for institutions crossing the key $10 billion and $50 billion (total assets) thresholds- on developing/improving stress testing models, risk governance structures, enhanced ERM processes, and other requirements for heightened risk management and analytical capabilities.
Jeff has been a senior specialist, throughout his career, in the areas of financial risk management and capital markets, including asset/liability, investment, liquidity, interest rate risk, and capital management and modeling.
Jeff holds a Master of Science with focus on Investments and Capital Markets, the same areas on which he concentrated as a senior regulator.
Substantial understanding of regulatory processes, including safety-soundness examinations, ongoing supervision, and the promulgation of regulations. Was a senior officer (Assistant Director and Senior Capital Markets Specialist) for two federal financial institution regulatory agencies. Was awarded the Treasury Secretary’s Annual Performance Award for my work on critical capital markets cases.
SENIOR ADVISOR
Michael J. Dean had a storied career of public service in financial regulation and bank supervision, encompassing both safety and soundness, and consumer protection programs with the FDIC. He served in an array of key leadership and executive roles with the FDIC over his thirty-year tenure. Michael rose through the bank examiner ranks to an executive role in the Atlanta Region and undertook several special assignments at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the FDIC. He was a key leader in recruiting and developing the professional examination staff of the agency, led strategic planning and human resource initiatives, and served as a highly respected and accomplished mentor to others.
A notable area of focus of Michael has been preserving minority banks, and he served as the National Minority Depository Institution Coordinator for the FDIC. He built strong community outreach programs and he continues to strive to expand banking services to all, especially to underserved communities and the unbanked.
In 2014, the FDIC appointed Michael as Regional Director for the Atlanta Region. In that role, he was responsible for examination programs in regulatory compliance, Community Reinvestment Act, information technology, trust, and safety and soundness, for financial institutions located in the Atlanta Region (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia). He had oversight responsibility for approximately 400 examiners and field supervisors located throughout the southeast and supervisory responsibility for over 600 financial institutions. Michael handled numerous enforcement actions and regulatory applications, including large and complex cases.
Michael’s Atlanta Region’s large bank supervision program included the largest banks directly supervised by the FDIC. His administration of the large bank program required close coordination with the Federal Reserve, State Banking Authorities, among others. These activities included onsite assessments, targeted examination reviews, offsite analysis, continuous monitoring of financial and operational performance and risks, stress testing, and resolution planning.
SENIOR ADVISOR
Donna Gambrell has nearly four decades of government and public service, including banking, community and economic development, consumer protection, grants management and community relations. Donna is a highly regarded leader with a record of accomplishments directing start-up organizations and “right-sizing” organizations adversely impacted by financial and resource constraints. She has an impressive string of achievements, including enhancing the capacity of community-based organizations, and administering a multi-million-dollar awards program that assists low-income communities nationwide.
As Director of the U.S. Department Treasury’s CDFI Fund, Donna led initiatives to fulfill CDFI’s mission, expand its funding, and implement new programs that broadened support of small business financing, affordable housing development, community facilities, and financial education. She administered U.S. Treasury’s only community and economic development program office and implemented programs that provided capital, credit and financial services to distressed and underserved communities across the country. Donna led the restructuring of the CDFI Fund, which resulted in improved business processes and protocols; enhanced standard operating procedures; a significant reduction in award processing timelines; more efficient disbursement of awards; a greater emphasis on human capital investment and workforce diversity; and an overhaul of the Fund’s infrastructure, including its information technology, financial management, compliance, and certification programs. She provided congressional testimony and briefings and conducted frequent outreach events to the public.
During a distinguished 16-year tenure at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Donna held a number of senior leadership roles overseeing the FDIC’s national compliance bank examination, community affairs, consumer protection, and deposit insurance programs. This oversight involved guiding over 500 managers and staff in compliance, the Community Reinvestment Act, fair lending, consumer protection and deposit insurance regulations, as well as community and economic development principles and practices.
In 2017, Donna was hired as President and CEO of Appalachian Community Capital (“ACC”), an intermediary organization created in 2013 to bring new sources of capital to a consortium of community development financial institutions serving small business owners in the Appalachian Region, one of the most economically distressed regions in the country. ACC’s capital has helped finance renewable energy projects, manufacturing sites, elder care facilities, restaurants, farms, ecotourism centers, and downtown redevelopment projects, among other projects. Members who have received loans through ACC report that the proceeds resulted in 90 loans totaling $18.5 million to Appalachian small businesses. Two-thirds of these loans went to businesses with general annual revenues of $1 million or less, and 47% went to minority- and women-owned businesses. These initiatives have created or retained over 1,800 jobs, about 44% of which low-income residents occupy. Selected as a Forbes Opportunity Zone 20 Catalyst, ACC is partnering with local, state, and national leaders, along with grant support t from the Appalachian Regional Commission, to attract investors to Opportunity Zone projects in the region.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ADVISOR
Mitchell Glassman has over 40 years of leadership experience in commercial banking, financial services, and business management. He joined Deloitte Consulting from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he served as Director of the Division of Resolutions and Receiverships for more than a decade.
Mitchell advised the FDIC Board of Directors and Chairman on all substantive receivership matters and served on high-level decision—making and policy-setting committees. During his tenure as Director, he led the FDIC’s successful efforts to resolve hundreds of failed financial institutions, including the resolution of the largest U.S. bank insolvencies in history.
Mitchell Glassman is a strategic regulatory and financial advisor who served in the FDIC’s Division of Resolutions for 40 years, heading the Division for this last ten years at the FDIC. During his tenure as Director, Mitchell led the FDIC’s successful efforts to resolve hundreds of failed financial institutions, including the resolution of the largest U.S. bank insolvencies in history. He provided leadership over the management and staffing to handle complex portfolios of more than $45 billion in assets, subsidiaries, and $176 billion in structured transactions.
Mitchell left the FDIC in 2011 to join as a Director at Deloitte Consulting, LLC. In his client work at Deloitte, Mitchell had a dual focus. First, he is focused on helping financial institutions and government clients — both in the U.S. and globally — build and/or modernize their technology infrastructure. Second, his longstanding senior leadership role at the FDIC enables him to strategize with financial services clients globally around what to expect and what must be accomplished as the Dodd-Frank Act’s rules continued to unfold. He has extensive knowledge of strategic planning, leadership development, execution, and program management.
Among other career highlights, Mitchell directed the FDIC’s Y2K Failed Financial Institution Contingency Planning Task Force, which created comprehensive testing and training to deal with potential institution failures resulting from Y2K. He also served as dean of FDIC’s College of Leadership Development and created a progressive FDIC-wide leadership-training program for the development of future executives.
Mitchell successfully led multiple projects including the development of an award-winning e-commerce web-based marketing and claims system, technical advisory services on international bank rehabilitations for the State Department, and development of major quality management programs. He has also provided testimony during Congressional hearings and given keynote speeches at international regulatory symposiums. Mitchell has been interviewed by NBC’s “Today Show,” CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and Public Broadcast Radio, as well as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Bloomberg News.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ADVISOR
Roger O. Goldman brings 45 years of practical and forward-thinking experience as a successful CEO, board member and senior management leader for private and publicly traded companies. He recently ended his 16-year tenure as Chairman of the Executive Committee of American Express National Bank, after serving as Chairman of the Board and chairing all major committees, including Audit, Risk and Compliance. Roger currently serves as a board member and as an executive advisor with multiple companies in industries as diverse as biotech, consumer goods, fintech and real estate.
After getting his law degree, Roger joined the corporate lending business at Citicorp in 1969. He spent the next seven years in various management positions, leading a high-risk leveraged buyout team and becoming the youngest senior credit officer at Citicorp. In 1977 Roger joined the new consumer banking group headed by John Reed, where he served in a variety of more senior positions until 1983. He left the company to become CEO of a troubled California community bank, recapitalizing the bank and returning it to profitability.
From 1986 to 1990, Roger was a partner in a boutique consulting firm specializing in developing strategy for domestic and foreign banks. In 1990, at the request of regulators, he joined a $12 billion savings bank on the cusp of failure, where he was responsible for the workout of troubled real estate and a large retail and middle-market portfolio. He then joined NatWest Bancorp, at that time the 15th largest bank in the US, as Executive Vice President responsible for its branches, middle-market lending, private banking, credit cards, and non-bank distribution. After NatWest Bancorp sold, he started a direct marketing company, growing it to $700 million in sales and profitability before it was sold in the year 2000.
With over four decades in board level, executive and advisory roles, Roger has guided many companies and their teams to sustainable long-term value by focusing sharply on employees, customers, communities and shareholders. Organizations rely on his deep expertise and his strong operational background as CEO and COO to increase market capitalization and revenue, boost profitability and employee engagement. He has led multiple companies to additional market cap and increased a Top 25 bank's revenue by 25% and grew a startup profitably. Widely respected for his thought leadership and change-management expertise, Roger champions a culture that is based on trust, accountability and transparency to build more vibrant and valuable businesses.
Roger served as Chairman of the Board and Chairman Emeritus for Lighthouse International, a charitable organization dedicated to vision rehabilitation. He is past Board Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes research.
SENIOR ADVISOR
Bob Goldstein is a banking and finance professional who has served in numerous executive and key leadership roles during his extensive 50-year career. He has been CEO, Chairman and director of over 20 financial institutions in 11 states capitalizing on his expertise in risk management and governance to improve profitability and regulatory compliance. A widely recognized turnaround specialist, Bob creates shareholder value by helping troubled financial institutions of all sizes mitigate underperformance and by restructuring marginally profitable companies across the country. For his work, he draws on a team of highly experienced bankers with expertise in risk management, asset quality administration, audit, finance, operations, human resources and marketing.
Bob's experience includes engagements in commercial banking, savings banks and other financial institutions. Between 2008 and 2018, he was a Founding Principal of CapGen Financial, a $500 million investment fund whose mission was to invest in domestic banks which had the potential for value appreciation. In this capacity, he served on the boards of five banks steering them toward more profitability and ultimately a realization of increased value. At the conclusion of this ten-year fund, Bob became a member of several boards of directors, including Cypress Bank & Trust Co. and a factoring company in Florida, an equipment leasing company in Utah, and a fintech company in Arizona. He is also chairman of the Advisory Board of a banking services company in Alabama.
Institutional and private equity investors have relied on Bob's expertise to inject substantial cash infusions into companies in need of additional liquidity and growth. Having been involved with these investors in eleven states, he worked with bankers, regulators, financial analysts and others across the country, giving him experience in nearly every market nationwide. In each of these, his risk administration and governance has been paramount. Bob has been recognized by Wall Street analysts, banking regulators and investment bankers for his work in reviving troubled or failing institutions. Among other honors, he was named "Businessperson of the Year" in New Haven, CT after successfully saving a Connecticut bank from almost certain failure.
Bob received his degree from Texas Christian University and was a Merit Scholar and Honor Student at the University of Texas. Additionally, he served for years on the faculty of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University.
SPECIAL ADVISORY – RISK MANAGEMENT, BSA/AML/OFAC & CREDIT
Larry Gordon is a senior risk and compliance professional who has held executive roles within the financial services industry for more than 25 years across the three lines of defense— customer-facing business line management; Corporate Compliance; and Independent Review. During his career, Larry was a leader at organizations ranging from large banks to FinTech start-ups where he was adept at identifying issues, partnering to develop options, and implementing collaborative solutions. That approach resulted in the design of industry-leading processes and tools that help transform the identification and mitigation of risk, improve organizational business processes, and facilitate culture change.
Larry’s breadth of expertise enables him to take a holistic approach to enterprise risk management that is combined with the depth of experience to address solutions in the following areas: strategic risk projects, OFAC (sanctions) compliance, BSA/AML, regulatory compliance, establishment of credit review and credit underwriting programs, portfolio management, risk assessments, and due diligence for mergers and acquisitions.
Larry is a Certified Anti-Money-Laundering Specialist (CAMS). He also has deep expertise in continuous improvement and Six Sigma. His underwriting experience spans a variety of industries and credit profiles from investment grade to leveraged buyouts, including operating companies with international supply chains and global customer bases.
Most recently, Larry served as Director of Compliance and Financial Crime at a fintech start-up based in Dallas, Texas. He also provided enterprise risk, financial crime, and regulatory compliance advisory services through his work at Endurance Advisory Partners and Gordon Risk Solutions.
Larry served as Senior Vice President, Director of OFAC and BSA Training at Huntington Bank in Columbus, Ohio. Before that, he served as Senior Vice President, Portfolio Risk and Senior Vice President, Director of Credit Review at the bank. He moved to Huntington Bank from The South Financial Group, where he served as Senior Vice President, Credit Review Manager. Larry also spent fifteen years at Bank of America in a variety of Senior Vice President roles, providing business finance support to Global Risk Management, leading credit examinations, transforming the bank's strategic credit risk management, and wholesale lending.
Larry holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Rochester and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ADVISOR
Ed Hida is among the most preeminent risk and regulatory experts in the financial services industry. He has worked with global, national and regional banks, insurers, asset managers, financial infrastructure and specialized finance companies. Ed is a trusted, strategic advisor to the C-suite and boards of many of the world’s largest and most recognizable brands in the financial services industry. He is a financial expert and Qualified Risk Director®.
Prior to joining the Secura/Isaac Group’s leadership team as Senior Executive Advisor, Ed spent more than 30 years leading risk and regulatory practices and large-scale projects as a Deloitte Advisory Partner, serving Deloitte’s most important clients, among them 7 of the 10 largest global banks.
He led his clients through the most significant disruption to the banking industry during and after the 2008 financial crisis, helping them with the execution of regulatory remediation, enterprise risk management program development, CCAR and DFAST stress testing program design and implementation, and bank charter conversions among other programs.
He has advised major financial institutions on multi-billion dollar M&A transactions by conducting asset quality, infrastructure, risk management and regulatory due diligence. He has also served as the lead capital markets partner for large domestic and global banking audit clients, executing the assessment of risk management programs and reporting to the SEC and CFTC. Given the strategic and high-stakes nature of his work, Ed often reported directly to the Boards of Directors and to bank regulatory bodies, including the Federal Reserve, OCC and FDIC.
He served as an advisory board member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals and on the Blue Ribbon Panel of The Professional Risk Managers’ International Association. Ed is a prolific writer and speaker and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Nikkei, Time Magazine, Bloomberg TV, Sky Business TV and Yahoo Finance TV.
He received his Master of Science in Management, Accounting and his Bachelor of Business Administration, Finance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst and a Certified Public Accountant in the state of New York. Ed is a member of the Japanese American Citizens League and the Ascend Asian Executive Network.
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
Brian E. Hobart served in numerous key leadership and executive roles during his more than 25 years in banking. The credit-minded finance executive has extensive experience in enterprise-wide, commercial lending portfolio and growth, and boasts a long, successful track record in team building, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning and change management.
Brian is the former Vice Chairman and Chief Lending Officer of the Independent Bank Group, Inc., where he was responsible for the lending functions of the publicly traded, award-winning $15 billion financial institution.
He led efforts to substantially increase portfolio growth–organically and through acquisitions–from $750 million to $10 billion while maintaining exceptional credit metrics. Brian was also the executive in charge of the Bank’s retail mortgage strategy, a business line that generated $1.5 billion in principal balance annually through correspondent and portfolio channels. He had direct loan authority and provided guidance for the organization’s risk management policies and procedures, including underwriting, decisioning and analytics. Brian was a key member of due diligence teams where he focused on loan and asset quality review of acquisitions. He sat on numerous bank committees, including as a voting member on the loan, asset and liability committees.
Brian earlier served as President of Independent Bank Group Central Texas, where he grew assets from de novo to $250 million and developed initial credit and operations policies and procedures.
Previously, he was an executive at two leading, locally owned community banks, where he led portfolio growth and management, prospecting and underwriting.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University. He is also a graduate of the National Trust School (Northwestern University) and the Southwestern School of Banking (South Methodist University).
SENIOR ADVISOR
Marilú is an attorney and certified Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) expert with more than 25 years of experience in the financial services sector. She served as the Chief Compliance Officer for the leading Hispanic banking institution in the United States, supervised by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Marilú is an industry authority with extensive experience evaluating BSA/AML, USA Patriot Act, and Office of Foreign Asset Control compliance programs as well as consumer and financial compliance.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ADVISOR
Paul Reynolds has over 36 years of experience leading all aspects corporate governance, government relations, community affairs, strategic planning, merger and acquisition negotiation and integration and regulatory compliance.
Until 2022, Paul served as Partner of Counsel at Dinsmore and Shohl, where he specialized in financial institutions and payment systems. Throughout his time there he advised clients on regulatory compliance, including financial services and broker-dealer and Registered Investment Advisor compliance, and corporate formations and transactions.
Before this, Paul had a 23-year career at Fifth Third Bancorp, where he served most recently as Executive Vice President, Chief Risk Officer and Secretary. Paul created a sophisticated corporate legal function to keep pace with significant growth including ever-expanding geographically diverse operations. As the function developed, he was asked to assume additional and varied responsibilities, including developing further in-house legal expertise in areas such as regulatory compliance, negotiation of mergers and acquisitions, management of community affairs, development of a government relations function and eventually assuming responsibility for management of human resources, merger and acquisition integration and strategic planning.
As a member of Fifth Third’s Executive Management group, Paul attended all Board of Director and Committee meeting as advisor and counsel. He also served as the point of contact and organization’s representative with state and federal regulators and other external constituents including significant community representation. Before serving as Chief Risk Officer, Paul also served as Chief Legal Officer and Chief Administrative Officer at Fifth Third.
Paul has served as Co-Chair of the Governor’s panel on Financial Institutions for the State of Ohio and on the Board of the Ohio Banker’s League, where he served as Chairman. He has spoken at various trade conferences and educational programs on legal matters and risk management in finance. He holds a B.S. in Management from Northern Kentucky University and a J.D. from University of Kentucky School of Law.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ADVISOR
Alan I. Rothenberg’s long and distinguished career spans the worlds of finance, law, sports, entertainment, and non-profit organizations.
In the financial world, Alan was the founder and Chairman of 1st Century Bank, now a division of MidFirst Bank, for which he currently serves as Chairman for its Southern California market. Previously, he cofounded another very successful independent financial institution, First Los Angeles Bank. Alan has served as counsel and board member for several other banks.
In his legal career, he was Managing Partner of Manatt, a leading law firm in the financial services and health care sectors. He then joined Latham & Watkins as partner, from which he retired to found 1st Century Bank and Premier Partnerships, a sports agency that values and maximizes revenues for professional, collegiate, municipality-owned arenas, stadiums, theaters and other properties through the sale of naming rights and sponsorships which are then securitized to finance construction of these facilities.
In the corporate world, Alan served on numerous boards and committees of publicly traded companies, including Zenith National Corporation, Arden Realty and California Pizza Kitchen.
Alan is widely recognized for his extraordinary achievements in the world of sports. He served as a top executive in the NBA from 1967 to 2000 representing the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, and as Chair of the NBA TV and Labor Committees. He then spearheaded soccer’s spectacular rise in the United States as President of the United States Soccer Federation from 1990 until 1998. Alan was Chair and CEO of the 1994 FIFA World Cup, which remains the organization’s most successful global event to date in terms of attendance and profits.
Alan was appointed Chairman of the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the most successful women’s sporting event in history, and oversaw the establishment of Major League Soccer. He sits on the boards of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission, the Los Angeles Sports Council, and the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games.
Within FIFA he has served on its World Cup Organizing Committee for France in 1998, Japan-Korea in 2002, and Germany in 2006, as well as on its Women’s World Cup Committee and Ethics Committee. He was also the 2006 Chair of FIFA’s inspection committee which evaluated bids from Brazil, England, Germany, Morocco, and South Africa.
Among the many honors Alan has received during his long and distinguished career in sports are the FIFA Order of Merit, the U.S. Olympic Foundation’s Sports Leadership Award, and the Sports Business World’s “Champion in the Sports Business”. He was inducted into the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame-Builders.
Alan has held numerous leadership roles in community and non-profit organizations, including as President of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners which operates LAX airport, Chairman of the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and as Chairman of the Los Angeles Tourism Board. Alan also served as President of the State Bar of California in 1989 and 1990.
A longtime resident of California, Alan received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. with distinction from its law school, which also honored him with a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019.
Alan and his wife, also a graduate of the University of Michigan and an accomplished sculptor and jewelry designer, have three sons and six grandchildren.
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ADVISOR
Gregory A. Schroeck is 35-year commercial banking executive, having served in senior leadership roles in commercial line-of-business and credit management at Fifth Third Bank.
Prior to retirement from Fifth Third Bank in 2021, Greg was head of commercial specialty products and administration, responsible for several Lines of Business including Commercial Real Estate, Asset Based Lending, Leasing, Leverage Finance, Dealer Finance, Asset Securitization and ESOP. Greg was also responsible for commercial portfolio administration, business controls and portfolio oversight activities across all commercial lines of business. These responsibilities included e2e process improvement and nCino implementation oversight. He was a member of the following Committees: Policy (Chair), Commercial Risk, Operating and Enterprise Risk.
Greg’s prior role was the chief commercial credit officer, responsible for managing the aggregate commercial risk, including policies, procedures, processes and strategies. Greg also served as director of credit risk review for the Bancorp.
Greg earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Cincinnati with a concentration in finance and marketing.
Greg has served on the LaSalle High School Development Board, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Board, and was a director for the Greater Cincinnati Local Development Co., and the Business Mobilized Board for Xavier Foundation.
PRESIDENT
James C. Watkins has nearly four decades of domestic and international bank regulatory experience. James may be the only senior official to have served the FDIC through the bank and thrift crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the Great Recession’s financial and banking crisis of 2008 to 2013, and the pandemic of 2020. He is a recognized expert on crisis management, credit risk assessments, liquidity strategies, operational risks, bank stress testing, resolution plans, prudential regulatory standards, and complex regulatory applications. James also has expertise in community banking and the formation of new banks.
Previously, Jim was Senior Deputy Director of Supervisory Examinations leading all FDIC safety and soundness programs nationally. In this capacity, he led units responsible for the regulatory and deposit insurance oversight of community and large banks. Jim was a key advisor to the Chairman, Board members, and others on significant policy initiatives; complex, unique or sensitive matters; banking conditions and trends, and strategies for addressing troubled banks. Regulatory programs overseen under his authority included remediation for severely troubled institutions and organizations, leadership of Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) activities, issuance of enforcement actions on culpable individuals, development of the current large bank examination strategies, and processing of complex applications. He has also participated in international policy development while he represented the FDIC as a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s Supervision and Implementation Group.
Jim, a CPA, holds an M.B.A. from University of Massachusetts, Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management and a B.S., cum laude, from James Madison University. He is also a graduate of the Stonier School of Banking.
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Rick Wolf, is a former corporate and legal executive with extensive experience as a consultant specializing in designing governance, regulatory and corporate compliance, and risk management programs. Since the enactment of Sarbanes Oxley Act and related, broad changes to the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations, Rick has designed and implemented start-up compliance programs for several multi-national corporations, designing programs for employees and executives in over 50 countries. His body of work includes creating ethics and compliance programs, whistleblower systems, regulatory compliance programs, enterprise risk management systems, corporate governance charters and reporting procedures, targeted training and awareness programs, and education for boards of directors and executives on ethics and leadership.
Rick has worked as a Senior Advisor for FTI Consulting, and founded Lexakos Consulting LLC, a leading legal business consulting firm specializing in designing governance, regulatory and corporate compliance, and risk management practices for public, private and non-profit organizations. Following the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York engaged Rick to serve as a special compliance advisor, where he handled a variety of critical assignments, including revisions to the central bank’s BSA/AML and OFAC Sanctions compliance policies and procedures.
Rick is also the former Chief Ethics Officer of HSBC North America, Inc., where he developed a comprehensive ethics program for the US-based subsidiary of one of the largest banks in the world and helped lead a team that formulated a global whistleblower system for managing global financial crime risk and early fraud detection. Rick earlier served as Senior Vice President — Legal and Head of Global Compliance at Cendant Corporation, where he was a managing lawyer and the multinational corporation’s first compliance and information governance executive. His vertical industry expertise includes financial services, health care, franchising, chemical, petroleum, automotive and non-profits.
Rick was recently appointed to the member consultative team for the upcoming Restatement on Corporate Governance, published by the American Law Institute (ALI), where he has been a member since 2007, and the ALI Principles of the Law, Compliance, Risk Management, and Enforcement. He is also the former president and board chairman of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Greater New York Chapter, where he directly succeeded then general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then general counsel of the Port Authority of NY & NJ. He has also served as a certified mediator for the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and to the Panel of Distinguished Neutrals for the CPR International Institute for Conflict Resolution, where he has officiated over commercial mediation and arbitration.
Rick is a frequent lecturer on topics of governance, risk management and compliance and has been a featured speaker and subject matter expert for organizations such as The Conference Board, Compliance Week, Practising Law Institute, American Bar Association, and ARMA International, among others.
Rick began his career as an attorney at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, and Pitney, Hardin, Kipp & Szuch (now Day Pitney). He earned a B.A. from Stockton University and a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was an editor on Washington University Law Review.
