Dive Brief:
- PNC veteran Lynne Biggio Herndon is joining Western Alliance as the bank’s next chief credit officer, the Phoenix, Arizona-based lender said last week in a statement.
- The hire completes a raft of executive moves for Western Alliance that began in September 2022, and enables Herndon’s predecessor, Tim Bruckner, to take a new role as chief banking officer for regional banking 16 months after the expected transition was announced.
- Western Alliance had been one of the most closely watched regional banks after the failures of Signature, Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic last year prompted a crisis of confidence among investors. The bank’s stock price has rebounded, jumping 54% since the end of October, according to Yahoo Finance.
Dive Insight:
Herndon’s hire caps a leadership shift that saw Western Alliance name a new chief legal officer, expand the role of its CFO and create a strategy for commercial banking that splits responsibility between Bruckner and Steve Curley, the bank’s chief banking officer of national business lines.
Bruckner isn’t the only Western Alliance executive who saw a delay in his transition to a new role. The bank had originally planned for its former chief legal officer, Randall Theisen, to become head of corporate affairs in the first quarter of 2023 — and for then-General Counsel Jessica Jarvi to succeed him at that point. But Western Alliance delayed that move by three months amid last spring’s banking crisis.
After the collapse of Signature and Silicon Valley Bank last March, attention turned to a cadre of regional lenders with a sizable proportion of commercial banking clients: First Republic, PacWest, Zions and Western Alliance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized First Republic and sold it to JPMorgan Chase. Banc of California agreed to buy PacWest. And rumors swirled in May that Western Alliance was exploring a sale. The bank’s chief marketing officer, however, debunked that narrative — attributed to two anonymous sources in the Financial Times — and added that Western Alliance was “considering all of our legal options in response to the story.”
In the week after First Republic’s sale, Western Alliance issued two updates to its investors regarding the strength of its deposits. Deposits at the bank then grew by 6.4% between July and September, American Banker reported.
In Herndon, Western Alliance gains an executive with 30 years of experience, the bank said. She last served as PNC’s commercial credit executive for the west region. She came to PNC in the bank’s acquisition of BBVA’s U.S. footprint, and held senior credit positions at Regions Bank before that.
“Her decades of experience managing complex credits and implementing sound risk management practices will complement our already strong credit function and ensure that we maintain our industry-leading asset quality,” Western Alliance CEO Ken Vecchione said of Herndon.
Herndon’s addition means Western Alliance will have nine members on its executive leadership team, including four women, a bank spokesperson told American Banker.
“Western Alliance has a long track record for strong credit quality, and I’ve had the great pleasure of working with many of the people there over the years,” Herndon said in a statement last week. “I look forward to continuing, and building on, its culture of disciplined and proactive credit risk management.”
