SVB Exec Joseph Gentile Served as CFO to Lehman Brothers Before 2008 Collapse

Before joining the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) as the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) in 2007, Joseph Gentile served as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank before the public collapse in 2008.

Gentile worked at Lehman as the CFO, directing the accounting and financial needs in the Fixed Income division before he left in 2007 — just one year before it became one of the biggest banks to declare bankruptcy during the 2008 financial crisis.

Since leaving Lehman, before the major collapse, he has been serving as CAO at SVB.

After being founded in 1983, SVB, the tech sector-focused bank, collapsed last week when panicked customers suddenly withdrew tens of billions of dollars after the bank announced a loss of approximately $1.8 billion from a sale of its investments in U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities.

Ultimately, regulators shut Silicon Valley Bank down, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took control of the bank and said they would protect insured deposits.

On Sunday, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC announced they would be taking “decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in [the U.S.] banking system” by effectively making deposits above the FDIC’s $250,000 limit available on Monday.

At the time of the collapse in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, with $639 billion in assets and $619 billion in debt, according to case studies. At the end of 2022, SVB was the sixteenth largest bank by assets according to U.S. Federal Reserve data.

Gentile’s connection to Lehman and SVB has sparked numerous takes over social media.

“Like I said, Lehman 2.0 – when you’re levered over 10x++ and you sell assets for a loss, it’s a catastrophe,” stated one Twitter account going by “Stratton Oak.” “Joseph Gentile was the Chief Administrative Officer at [SVB]. Prior to joining in 2007, he served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank.”

“This is truly unusual,” another Twitter account called “unusual_whales” tweeted.

“Meet Joseph Gentile. He was the Chief Administrative Officer at Silicon Valley Bank,” the account stated, before noting, “Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank.”

“What a co-incidence,” the Twitter account “Wealth Saga” emphasized.

“Meet Joseph Gentile. He was the Chief Administrative Officer at Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank,” the account added.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.