Manufacturers Bank added Michael Leary, a Chartered Financial Analyst, as Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer, reporting to Kazuhisa Miyagawa, Chairman and CEO, and functionally to the Manufacturers Bank Board of Directors and to Kim Olson, Chief Risk Officer of the Americas Division of SMBC, the bank’s parent company.

Leary will be responsible for the overall direction and control of risk exposure for the bank and will provide leadership and strategic direction regarding the risk framework, including oversight of both financial and non-financial risk. He will also be a member of Manufacturers Bank Management Committee.

Leary is an accomplished banking professional with more than 30 years of experience in risk management, regulatory oversight, consumer relations, commercial banking and treasury operations. He holds three patents related to banking technology and is highly respected in the industry as a thought leader on leveraging technology, data, and decision science to support risk management.

“We are excited to welcome Michael, with his extensive risk management background, to build a strong and robust risk management program,” said Miyagawa.

Olson said, “We are fortunate to bring Michael on board at this important juncture as we continue to build our U.S. operations. Michael has significant retail banking risk management and banking technology experience, which will allow him to deepen our risk management framework and oversight and position us for disciplined growth.”

Prior to joining Manufacturers Bank, Leary served as the Senior Vice President of Payments Risk and Collections Infrastructure at U.S. Bank, where he successfully led cross-functional teams to implement world-class risk and fraud management tools for payments, lending and deposit products. As Senior Vice President, Risk Strategies Execution Executive at Bank of America, Leary architected the bank’s Model Analytics Platform for consumer and small business risk management and revenue reporting and implemented the bank’s first relationship-data-driven underwriting strategy. His experience and accomplishments also include working as a Supervising Examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Leary has Bachelor of Science degree from King’s College Wilke-Barre, PA, and is a CFA charterholder since 1998.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, Manufacturers Bank is a subsidiary of SMBC Americas Holdings, Inc., a bank holding company wholly owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Its portfolio of services includes Commercial and Small Business Lending, Quick Service Restaurants, Specialty Banking, Fiduciary, Trust and Estates, International Services and Cash Management Services.