The audience at Tuesday’s meeting of San Marino City Club wore more suits than sports shirts, possibly as an homage to the guest speaker, Russell Goldsmith, the chairman and CEO of City National Bank.
Goldsmith has spent 20 years as CEO of City National, which merged last November with Royal Bank of Canada to form an organization that employs nearly 6,000 and manages client investment assets of more than $310 billion.
Employing an interview-style format, Goldsmith fielded questions from City Club Vice President David Wang, who opened by asking about the bank’s 60-year history.
City National Bank was started in 1954 by a group of entrepreneurs, one of whom happened to be my grandfather,” said Goldsmith. “The area was occupied by a lot of entrepreneurs. The community was on its way up. We are trying to be true to our founders’ original vision.”
Wang then asked Goldsmith about City National’s reputation as “the bank of the stars.”
“I have been CEO for 20 years and I have never put out a press release saying we are the bank of the stars,” said Goldsmith, which brought a roar of laughter. “People in L.A. are mesmerized with stars and with Hollywood. We had Genera Lomar Bradley and Army Hammer on our board of directors. It was a colorful cast of characters and big banks looked down their noses at us. Famously, Frank Sinatra’s son was kidnapped. Sinatra called Al Hart. He opened the bank on a Saturday and got into the vault. He put $240,000 in a suitcase and drove it to his house. Fortunately, the kidnaper was caught, we got our money back and Sinatra encouraged his friends to bank with us.”
When asked about City National’s reliance upon “relationship banking,” Goldsmith said, “We have had strong values and a strong culture. We also have strong, talented people. We value the culture we have built and we work hard at it every day.”
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