RBC's City National Bank taps Fifth Third's Hammond as new CEO

City National Bank has tapped Howard Hammond, a 17-year veteran of Fifth Third Bancorp, as its new CEO to replace Kelly Coffey, who will move to a newly-created role as CEO of the bank's entertainment unit. 

Hammond will relocate to Los Angeles and report to Greg Carmichael, the former CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp, who was named executive chair of City National's board of directors in September. The appointments are effective Nov. 27, the bank said in a press release. The news was first reported by Variety. 

The $96.4 billion-asset City National — long known as the "bank to the stars" because of its extensive Hollywood connections — was acquired by Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada in 2015. 

Coffey has been CEO for five years and was tapped to lead City National by the bank's longtime former CEO Russell Goldsmith. 

In January, City National got hit with a consent order by the Justice Department over allegations that it failed to offer home loans to Black and Hispanic borrowers in Los Angeles County from 2017 to 2020. The bank agreed to pay $31 million in the largest redlining settlement in the agency's history.

The bank was also burdened with higher funding costs due to soaring interest rates, and pressure to reduce lending capacity as a means of conserving capital and liquidity, RBC CEO Dave McKay said on a recent earnings call. RBC faced pressure to cut costs substantially after City National reported a $38 million loss in the third quarter, which ran from May to July, leading analysts to question how the bank planned a turnaround. 

Amid profit woes, City National will get an infusion of new leadership

Hammond, a 30-year banking veteran, will join City National's board of directors and the executive committee of RBC's U.S. intermediate holding company. He most recently served as Fifth Third's executive vice president and head of consumer banking, overseeing 8,000 employees and more than 1,000 branches. He previously served as head of Fifth Third's retail banking and brokerage unit, and as president and CEO of Fifth Third Securities. 

"He is the ideal leader to take City National to its next stage and prepare the bank for future success," Carmichael said in a press release.

Under the restructured executive lineup, JaHan Wang, City National's current executive vice president of entertainment banking, will report to Coffey while Martha Henderson will remain vice chairman of entertainment banking.