William Stanton Demchak (born August 24, 1962) is a business executive in the finance industry as the current

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

PNC Financial Services The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (stylized as PNC) is an American bank holding company and financial services corporation based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its banking subsidiary, PNC Bank, operates in 27 U.S. state, states and the D ...

. He is credited with being one of the earliest adopters of the credit default swap, especially the creation of markets around them, which due to the role they would play in the

Financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...

earned him the title "prince of darkness" within the industry.

Early life

Demchak has a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

from Allegheny College and an MBA (with an emphasis in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

) from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. At Allegheny, he was an Alden Scholar, actively participating in student government, the economics club, the Interfraternity Council, intramural sports, and Lacrosse. In addition, he was a member of the

Phi Delta Theta Phi Delta Theta (), commonly known as Phi Delt, is an international secret and social fraternity founded at Miami University in 1848 and headquartered in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, along with Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Chi form the Miami Triad ...

fraternity as well as the

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

Honor Society.

Career

Before PNC, Demchak held a variety of key executive positions at JP Morgan Chase. This includes: Global Head of Structured Finance and Credit Portfolio, involved in strategic agenda (before the JP Morgan-Chase Manhattan merger), member of the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. He says JPMorgan Chase “wasn’t a terribly enjoyable place to work.” He was also a director of

Hilliard Lyons ''J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons, LLC'' (d/b/a Hilliard Lyons) is a full-service wealth management firm with offices in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. ...

Research Advisors. Demchak is often credited with being the first major adopter of the credit default swap and conceiving the idea of bundling them together and selling them to investors, which is accredited with being one of the main factors in the

. Within the industry, Demchak has earned the nickname "prince of darkness". In 2002, Demchak first joined PNC as

chief financial officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

. At that time he worked alongside the then CEO,

Jim Rohr James E. Rohr (born October 18, 1948) is former Chairman of PNC Financial Services Group (commonly known as PNC Bank) and former CEO. Rohr served as CEO from May 2000 to April 2013 and as Chairman from May 2001 to April 2014, both times taking ove ...

. Three years later, he was promoted to head of the company’s Corporate & Institutional Banking, in charge of PNC's middle market and large corporate businesses, capital markets,

real estate finance Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

, equity management and

leasing A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

. In 2009, Demchak became Senior Vice Chairman and shortly there after head of PNC Businesses. William S. Demchak was elected president in April 2012, then chief executive officer in April 2013 and finally chairman in April 2014. In this capacity he is responsible for all of PNC’s businesses, including corporate and institutional banking,

retail banking Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking. Banking servi ...

, mortgage banking and the Asset Management Group. His total calculated compensation for the 2014 fiscal year was $11,337,904. In 2009, Financial Times reporter

Gillian Tett Gillian Tett (born 10 July 1967) is a British author and journalist at the ''Financial Times'', where she is chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US. She has written about the financial instruments that were part of the cause of the ...

named Demchak as head of the team at JP Morgan whose financial innovations later played a role in the 2008 crash. Tett described how the team developed new securitization techniques for "turbocharging the market". In particular, the team realised that SPV (special purpose vehicles) would not have to be fully funded. When the concept was taken up by less cautious banks, it would create "consequences that are currently rocking the planet."

Personal life

Demchak was born and raised and still today, lives in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. He says there is "nowhere else I’d want to raise my family." He is married to Debbie and they have three children together. He formerly sat on the Regulatory Management Committee of The Financial Services Roundtable, the Supervisory Board of The Clearing House, the

Allegheny Conference on Community Development The Allegheny Conference on Community Development is a nonprofit, private sector leadership organization dedicated to economic development and quality of life issues for a 10-county region in southwestern Pennsylvania, United States centered aro ...

Extra Mile Education Foundation The Extra Mile Education Foundation is a privately funded, non-profit charity 501(3)(c) based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded in 1989. The money raised by the charity is used to subsidize the tuition of low income students who attend several ...

Pittsburgh Cultural Trust The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (PCT) is a nonprofit arts organization formed in 1984 to promote economic and cultural development in Downtown Pittsburgh. The "Trust" has focused its work on a 14-square block section called the Cultural District, wh ...

, the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh,

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

of Pittsburgh and the Greater Pittsburgh Council of the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

, the latter of which he in the past, held the role of chairman.

Philosophy

According to Demchak, one key ingredient to becoming a successful leader is to believe you can always be better. He advises potential leaders to: “learn from your failures, surround yourself with people who will challenge you. Ensure your vision is shared ‘clearly and often’ with your team. Remain grounded in your values so that you never forget who you serve or why you come to work.” Of this specific work he has done and continues to do at PNC he says: “Unlike every bank in our position in history we’re not going to jump into capital markets.”

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Demchak, William S. Living people 1963 births 21st-century American businesspeople Ross School of Business alumni American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies