Western Alliance Legal Head Delays Job Switch on Bank ‘Dynamics’

Western Alliance Bancorp’s Randall Theisen is postponing his departure from the position of chief legal officer by one quarter “given the market dynamics” in the banking sector, the company’s general counsel, Jessica Jarvi, said in an email.

Theisen, who joined Western Alliance as its first general counsel in 2006, had been scheduled to retire from his legal chief and corporate secretary roles in the first quarter of this year and take the newly created position of head of corporate affairs, the bank said in a statement last September.

While he now keeps the legal post for a longer period than anticipated, Theisen has assumed the corporate affairs title, making him head of corporate communications, government and community relations, and marketing, according to Western Alliance’s website and the bank’s most recent proxy filing.

Regional banks have been in strife since early March over concerns that unrealized losses in bond investments might push some of them over the edge, and four did eventually falter, including Silicon Valley Bank.

Western Alliance’s share price has shed half of its value since early March—it was about $26.72 per share as of midday Wednesday—but within the past week rebounded as some US regional banks bounced back from steep losses.

Western Alliance issued a statement last week pushing back on a Financial Times report about the bank engaging outside counsel from Sullivan & Cromwell—a Wall Street law firm well-versed in US banking affairs—to evaluate its potential strategic options. Western Alliance said there was “no truth” to the report it was considering a sale of any part of its business.

Jarvi, a former associate at Snell & Wilmer, is now poised to take over from Theisen as Western Alliance’s top lawyer. She was promoted to general counsel last year after spending nearly a decade as a deputy general counsel at the Phoenix-based bank, which Jarvi joined in 2007.

Theisen wasn’t one of Western Alliance’s five highest-paid executives in fiscal 2022, per its most recent proxy statement. He currently owns nearly $1.6 million of the bank’s stock, according to Bloomberg data.