Failed Signature Bank Executive Ranks Filled by KPMG Audit Alums

Ties between Signature Bank and its auditor KPMG LLP run deep among the top leaders and board members of the failed lender, many of whom previously worked at the Big Four accounting firm.

Signature’s founder and top executive Joseph DePaolo was an audit manager at KPMG, and Stephen Wyremski, the institution’s chief financial officer, was a bank auditor for the firm, according to their biographies. Another alum of the firm, Keisha Hutchinson, signed off on the institution’s 2020 financial statements as a KPMG audit partner—just a month before the bank announced it was hiring her at its chief risk officer, ...