Speaker Spotlight:
JP Gough
Chairman & CEO
Orange County Business Bank

JP is not your normal Chairman & CEO and founder of a community bank. And this is not just because of the over-subscribed, record-breaking IPO when he launched Orange County Business Bank ("OCBB") in 2002 in what was then the worst stock market since the 1930's. Nor, is his distinctiveness based solely on the record-breaking over-subscription of the second stock offering for the bank less than 2 years after it opened.

What really makes JP unique in American banking is his breadth of financial experience, as a banker, manager, fix-it expert and practicing economist: from the World Bank, to Wall Street, to global banking expert, to Main Street. There is little in the way of finance in the world where JP has not been. His experiences include:

• Deloitte & Touche, Gobal Director, Financial Institutions Advisory Group - advisor to community, global and central banks, in the areas of strategic planning, mergers & acquisitions, financial product design & development, regulatory oversight, turn-arounds and financial risk management. While at Deloitte, JP was active in the 1998 Asian banking melt-down, under contract for the International Monetary Fund.
  
  
• Merrill Lynch & Co., reported to the Executives and Board of Directors as the economist, analyst and trouble-shooter covering worldwide activities and operations in Capital Markets - everything from underwriting and issuing of stocks, bonds and derivatives, to the trading floors of all financial products in what was then the largest and most diverse Wall Street firm in the world.
  
  
• Manufacturers Hanover Trust (at that time, a top-10 bank in the USA) as a credit officer (for the country of Mexico) and lending officer (for the country of Argentina).
  
  
• The World Bank - Worked in the development bank (IBRD) as well as the venture capital bank (IFC) on a wide ranging group of projects in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay, from creating new urban centers and affordable housing, to micro-finance, to startups of manufacturing companies and fishing fleets.
  
  
• In his early years, JP worked for a senior member of the US House of Representatives during the Watergate impeachment proceedings, which gave him up-close perspectives on how Congress and Washington work.

JP earned his BA and MBA from the George Washington University in Washington DC after studies in Spain and at the University of the Andes in Colombia. JP also completed advanced studies at the Kellogg School (Northwestern University) in financial derivatives and risk management.