Silicon Valley Bank Collapsed, Woman CRO Blamed For Failure: 10 Things To Know 

A California-based lender Silicon Valley Bank which was also the 16th largest bank in the United States has become the largest bank to collapse with over  209 billion dollars in assets, ever since the financial crisis in the year 2008. It collapses after disclosing a total loss of 1.8 billion dollars.

Jay Ersapah, the boss of Financial Risk Management at the Silicon Valley Bank’s United Kingdom branch who is also an LGBTQ activist is now being blamed for the failure, she is being accused of giving priority to pro-diversity initiatives over her actual role as the head of Financial Risk Management.

Ersapah co-chaired the European LGBTQ Employee Resource Group and was included in Silicon Valley Bank's 'Outstanding LGBT+ Role Models List 2022'.

Silicon Valley Bank Collapsed, Women Executive Blamed

• The Silicon Valley Bank was functioning without a Chief Risk Officer from April 2022 to January 2023, while on the other hand, the CRO from the UK branch is being accused of prioritising her initiatives related to pro-diversity over her actual role and work for the bank.
• Laura Lzurieta, Silicon Valley Bank’s head of risk management, who used to perform similar tasks for Capital One, earlier left the SVB in April 2022, and yet wasn't replaced until 2023 January by hiring Kim Olson.
• Jay Ersapah who worked as the CRO for Africa, the Middle East, and Europe was accused of the failure of the bank. Due to her activities like organising LGBTQ initiatives which included “safe space” catch-ups for the staff and a month-long Pride campaign.
• Earlier, Ersapah also moderated the EMEA Pride Townhall as well as served as a panellist at the Global Pride townhall to share her personal experience of being a lesbian.
• Greg Becker, SVB’s CEO credited Kim Olson’s “multi-faceted and deep financial service experience” as the senior regulator, risk leader as well as bank supervisor and indicated that such expertise is necessary for the particular role.
• As per the Bank’s official website, the CRO has to report to a committee consisting of seven people, made up of board members as well as the CEO itself.
• Biased critics are blaming Ersapah due to her involvement in LGBTQ issues, one Facebook user named Paul Tucker wrote: 'The Silicon Valley Bank’s Board of Directors is completely filled with diversity hires who are there because of their woke credentials” targeting Ersapah.
• A user on Twitter wrote, “This is what happens when the head of the financial risk of any bank is concerned more about woke politics than taking care of the Financial risk for the bank."
• While some other social media users took her side and claimed that it's the hyper-capitalistic mentality and greed which is the reason behind the bank's collapse and not Jay Ersapah’s woke roles.
• According to some analysts, Silicon Valley Bank’s holdings were hit due to Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes and also due to their values being dropped drastically, which made the depositors panic and withdraw their money. The failure is more the result of the faulty system than the bank.

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