PBO: Board of Directors

C. William Criss
Chair, Development Committee
Cornerstone Campaign Committee

Board member since: 2003

Bio: Bill joined HSBC Bank, USA, N. A. in June, 2005, as a Managing Director of HSBC Private Bank in San Francisco, adding to a career in banking spanning 35 years. His career began with the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. He moved with Chase to California in 1976, after posts in Tokyo and London, to its Los Angeles office, where he was Director of Credit and Marketing. He became the market manager for San Francisco where he opened the first Chase offices in 1981.

He left Chase in 1988 to start the EastWest Bank, N. A. in Honolulu, Hawaii. He served as Chairman and CEO. In 1992, he returned to San Francisco where he was part of the founding team that purchased Bank of San Francisco.

In 1995, he returned to the Chase Manhattan Bank to run its private bank in the Western Region and became Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Trust Company of California. After mergers with Hambrecht and Quist and J. P. Morgan, Bill became Chief Credit Officer for the Western Region of the merged private banking operations in California and COO of the J. P. Morgan Trust Company, N. A. He retired from J. P. Morgan Chase in 2004 and joined Deutsche Bank and its Private Wealth Management Group as the Office Director of the San Francisco office.

Bill is a director of the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Performances, the Stern Grove Festival, and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. He lives with his wife, Cerina and two sons, Charles and Darren, who are currently attending respectively, Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Hometown: Born in Pittsburgh, PA, grew up in Detroit, MI and East Greenwich, R. I. Still considers Rhode Island to be his hometown.

Instruments: He played the clarinet until his first and last recital.

Favorite composition: Bach Cantatas and Fugues. Don't press him on which ones!