We analyze the appointments of outside CEOs of financial and non-financial firms as independent directors on US bank boards and their implications for the banks and the outside CEO firms. We show that outside CEOs from financial firms match with less traditional banks and their appointment...

Outside CEOs from non-financial firms match with boards of lending-oriented banks and are sought for their networks. They do not improve board advising and monitoring but their appointment results in lending expansion, increased bank CEO compensation, and more bank debt for their firms. The...

Using bank board-level data and unique director work experience records from a large sample of publicly-listed U.S. banks, we examine (i) whether cognitively concentrated or diverse board align banks’ risk-taking preferences with those of regulators in terms of capital adequacy, and (ii) the...