One is a Hillary Clinton mega-donor who went to a Shinto shrine to hope after Donald Trump won the White House. One other worked for President Obama before her own political profession spectacularly failed. A 3rd is a prolific contributor to Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi — who owns a Napa Valley vineyard just quarter-hour from his.
There’s even an improv performer.
The 12 directors who were imagined to oversee fallen Silicon Valley Bank — and forestall the catastrophic errors on Friday threw the whole banking system into jeopardy — won’t be household names.
But now they face a series of investigations into their collective role in its collapse.
A Post examination of the board of execs reveals it didn’t jibe with Silicon Valley’s young image: just one independent director is under 60, while the oldest is 78.
SVB touted its diversity though, noting in its 2022 proxy statement that 45% of its board are women, along with “other diversity” like “one black” member, “one LGQBT+” and “two veterans.”
SVB Financial Group, the bank’s parent company, later appointed Tom King, former CEO of investment banking at Barclays, to its board in September because it touted $214 billion in assets and greater than 7,700 employees worldwide. The group is now composed of seven men and five women, or 41% female.
The group’s lack of banking expertise may more likely to catch the attention of investigators. Only one current member — King — has had a profession at the highest of the investment banking world.
What is evident is that the bank, and far of the board, burnished their Democratic credentials as a part of their strategy.
They donated to Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton, and to local Democrat Congressional reps including Pelosi — in addition to political motion committees for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, a longtime member of the powerful Senate banking committee.
Such contributions went hand-in-hand with the bank’s own business model.
“Everyone knew it was the go-to bank for woke CEOs,” one source told the Latest York Post. “They knew they were aligned politically. The businesses SVB loaned money to all had a woke agenda.”
Here’s a Who’s Who of the failed SVB board:
‘I prayed at a Shinto shrine after Hillary lost’
Director Kate Mitchell, 64, is a Hillary Clinton mega-donor who was so upset by Donald Trump’s 2016 victory that she went to a shrine in Kyoto that Thanksgiving.
“I prayed for me and us to get beyond our grieving and shock and to determine methods to engage and hearken to what happened and are available back together,” Mitchell told CNBC.
The prayers got here after she had donated $50,000 to the Hillary Victory fund.
Prior the election, Mitchell celebrated how 97% of technology company employees donations were going to Clinton.
“Ninety-seven percent support of Clinton is mind-blowing and really suggests that we’re pounding the table,” Mitchell told NBC News. “We expect her business policies are going to be friendlier.”
Mitchell was a prolific donor in 2016, but much less generous in 2020, donating only $593.33 each to Democratic parties in Minnesota, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
A veteran enterprise capitalist who co-founded Scale Enterprise Partners, Mitchell has been on the SVB board since 2010.
She’s been an outspoken advocate for enterprise capital, chairing the National Enterprise Capital Association and traveling continuously to Washington, DC, to lobby for Silicon Valley.
She also takes credit for co-authoring laws on initial public offerings in 2012 that made it easier for start-ups to get publicly traded.
The San Francisco resident also prides herself on championing diversity, co-founding VentureForward, which focuses on “advancing opportunities for ladies and underrepresented minorities within the enterprise ecosystem.”
And despite the biggest failure of corporate governance at a bank for the reason that 2008 crisis, Mitchell advises the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford Law School.
Learned methods to be a boss from doing improv
Board member Elizabeth “Busy” Burr splits executive success — she’s now the interim CEO of RiteAid after Heyward Donigan exited in January — with a rare hobby: improvisational theater.
The 61-year-old credits being in an improv troupe for taking her to the highest.
“I’ve learned so much from doing improv and it’s influenced how I take into consideration leadership,” she told Authority Magazine in February 2021 before joining SVB’s board months later in November.
Her woke credentials will not be doubtful. In the identical interview, she detailed how she saw her role as director as being about forcing firms to embrace diversity.
“It’s not enough to simply report the numbers, as an alternative, we want to demand a deep take a look at company culture — what are the informal networks and behaviors that support the established order,” Burr said. “Discuss this on the board level and hold management teams accountable for real change.”
Winemaker who toasts neighbor Nancy
Garen K. Staglin, who was elected to SVB’s board in 2012, is one other serial Democratic donor.
He owns the Staglin Family Vineyard, a 61-acre certified organic property in bucolic Napa County; the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon retails above $300.
The 78-year-old and his wife, Shari, bought the estate in Rutherford in 1985, putting them in elevated company: Lower than quarter-hour away is the Napa Valley estate owned by Democratic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul.
Staglin has donated to Pelosi, but reserved his biggest donations for national figures.
He gave the Biden Victory Fund $10,000 in 2020, sent $54,000 to Clinton’s Hillary Victory Fund in 2016 (on top of $25,000 the previous yr), backed President Obama with $35,800 in 2011 and gave the Democratic National Committee $10,000 last yr.
Obama official caught in race row
Probably the most politically-connected independent director is Mary J. Miller.
The 67-year-old was Obama’s Under Secretary for Domestic Finance on the Treasury Department from March 2012 to September 2014.
In her role, she implemented the Dodd-Frank financial reform laws which set the regulatory framework by which SVB operates — meaning she would have expert insight into the considering of regulators coping with the now-shuttered bank.
But her own attempt at a political profession resulted in disaster in 2020.
A longtime Baltimore resident, Miller ran to grow to be Charm City’s mayor in 2020, but finished in third within the Democratic Primary after a rare race row.
A political motion committee working on Miller’s behalf sent an explosive email to potential donors saying her campaign strategy was to focus on white voters — which would depart the 2 African-American candidates to separate the town’s majority black vote and clear her a path to victory, local station WBFF reported.
Confronted with the e-mail two months before the primary, Miller insisted the PAC – Residents for Ethical Progressive Leadership – had nothing to do along with her, saying in a mea culpa: “This is just not who I’m.”
It didn’t help: Miller limped in third with just 15.6% of the vote amongst Democrats.
The one real banker on board
Tom King, 63, SVB’s newest director, is the one board member with a profession at the head of the banking world.
He spent 35 years in investment banking, much of it at Citigroup before joining Barclays in 2013.
While at Barclays, King was the CEO of investment banking. But he retired amid claims that he was quitting because he didn’t need to be subject to UK laws making senior bankers legally directly responsible for his or her unit’s mistakes, Bloomberg reported.
Additional reporting by Lydia Moynihan
