Royal Bank of Canada RY-T is hiring an outsider as its executive chairman for City National Bank, a US-based lender that caters to high-net-worth clients.
Greg Carmichael, the former chief executive officer of U.S. regional lender Fifth Third Bancorp, is expected to join RBC in October. Although he is officially on City National's board of directors, he will report directly to RBC CEO Dave McKay.
In a statement, City National's CEO Kelly Coffey, who was hired in 2018 by JP Morgan Chase and Co., said she will report to Mr. Carmichael.
Carmichael has spent the past two decades at Fifth Third, which has a market value of US$19 billion. He took over as executive vice president of operations at the Cincinnati-based lender and rose to CEO. In July, 2022, he took over as executive chairman of the bank, but resigned this spring.
In March, Carmichael was selected by U.S. regulators to serve as a temporary CEO of Signature Bank after it failed and was seized. Carmichael had been hired by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to work on the company's list of veterans who could step in and run bridge banks that sell off assets or wind down after they have been taken over by regulators.
Mr. Carmichael, in his new position at RBC, is taking on a similar role as Mr. Guzman's current boss, wealth management and insurance head Doug Guzman. In January 2022, Guzman added oversight of RBC's U.S.-based wealth businesses and City National to his portfolio, and the latter's CEO reported to him.
At the time, Guzman was filling a hole created by the departure of Russell Goldsmith, the chair and former CEO of City National, whose family ran the bank for more than 40 years.
City National was acquired in 2015 for $7.1 billion and hired Ms. Coffey in 2018 as its CEO. Previously, she ran JP Morgan's private bank, which caters to high-net-worth clients and held multiple roles, including running the diversified-industries arm of its investment bank, advising companies like Ford Motor Co. and United Airlines Inc.