City National Bank Names Michael Speaker General Counsel

Speaker Brings Extensive Experience Advising Financial Institutions.

LOS ANGELES – City National Bank, America’s Premier Private and Business Bank®, today announced that Michael Speaker, an accomplished attorney with more than 15 years of experience, has joined the company as its executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. Speaker has led teams of attorneys covering commercial lending and leasing, wealth and asset management, insurance, securities, and capital markets, among others.

Based in Los Angeles, Speaker oversees the Legal and Corporate Administrative Group, which consists of legal and corporate governance, community reinvestment and corporate security. He reports to City National’s Chief Executive Officer Kelly Coffey and David Onorato, Royal Bank of Canada’s general counsel, and serves on City National’s Executive Committee. Speaker succeeds Jared Wolff, who left the bank earlier this year.

“Michael has extensive experience supporting financial institutions, as well as thorough regulatory expertise,” said Coffey. “He will lead the exceptional legal and corporate administrative teams that contribute to City National’s growth and stability and help our clients succeed.”

Prior to joining City National, Speaker served as deputy general counsel at Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati, Ohio. In this role, he was responsible for the legal teams that supported the bank’s business lines across commercial banking, private banking and credit. He also provided mergers and acquisitions advice, served as secretary and chief risk officer for five subsidiary boards of directors and managed nearly 200 outside counsel relationships.

Earlier in his career, he served as deputy chief counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he was head of the corporate legal department for the Office of Financial Stability. He negotiated Troubled Asset Relief Program investments in banks and other financial institutions. Active in financial regulatory affairs, he also assisted in drafting sections of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Speaker also prepared political appointees for congressional testimony. He began his career as an associate at McKee Nelson LLP and served as counsel for Ashurst LLP in Washington, D.C.

Speaker graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a major in government and the University of Virginia School of Law, where he earned his Juris Doctor.