Ronald Cathcart

Ronald J. Cathcart (born 1952) is a Canadian-born American banking executive and financial regulator. He is currently Managing Director, Head of Risk Practice at Promontory Financial Group.

Cathcart is also a member of the U.S. Risk Committee of the board of directors of French corporate investment bank Natixis, and is a former U.S. representative to the Policy Development Group of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Cathcart has previously served as the Head of Enterprise Risk Supervision at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Chief Enterprise Risk Officer at Washington Mutual. He has held risk management positions at the executive level at a number of other North American banks including the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bank One, and the Royal Bank of Canada. In early 2008, Cathcart was terminated by Chairman and CEO Kerry Killinger after escalating concerns about weak controls and rising losses to the bank's board of directors and regulators. He later served as a key witness testifying under oath during US Senate Subcommittee hearings examining causes and consequences of the 2008 financial crisis.

Early life and education Cathcart was born in Montreal, Quebec and lived his early life in its Westmount neighborhood. He is one of three children of Thomas and Margaret (née Thomson) Cathcart, who were of Scottish ancestry.

He attended prep school at Bishop's College School in Sherbrooke, Quebec before graduating from St Bees School in Cumbria, England with A-Levels in English and Physics. In 1974, he graduated with an AB in English from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of The Dartmouth Aires. Cathcart also obtained an MBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ontario.

Move to Washington Mutual In December 2005, Cathcart left CIBC to join Washington Mutual as its Chief Enterprise Risk Officer, reporting to Chairman and CEO Kerry Killinger as the bank's most senior risk officer. Under Washington Mutual's reporting structure, Chief Risk Officers for business units reported both into Enterprise Risk Management as well as into their business line's heads. A week later, a run on the bank occurred following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bank was seized by the OTS and sold to JPMorgan Chase.

Subsequent to his time at Washington Mutual, Cathcart founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Columbia Capital Consulting Group, a firm providing real estate consulting and risk management advisory services in the US.

Career in financial regulation In January 2012, Cathcart joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as Head of Credit, responsible for the assessment of credit risk at institutions under the bank's supervision. In 2013, Cathcart was appointed as the US designate to the Policy Development Group of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, where he contributed to the development of the Basel III framework.

Cathcart was promoted to Head of Enterprise Risk Supervision in March 2014, and was made responsible for the oversight of risks faced by financial institutions including systemically important firms designated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, large foreign financial institutions, and large regional banking organizations.

Cathcart left the New York Fed in 2017 for Promontory Financial Group, where he leads the consultancy's Risk Management and Regulatory practice.