Gregory W. Becker

Gregory W. Becker As the chief executive officer of SVB Financial Group, Inc.(SIVBQ) since 2011. He also served as the final chief executive officer of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco before SVB’s collapse in 2023.

Becker's first job out of college was at a Comerica branch in Detroit. Initially, the bank's records erroneously showed that he held a Master of Business Administration; he corrected the error, but it opened up opportunities for him. His manager offered him an opportunity to spend nine months working in the bank's branch in Pleasanton, California. Drawn by the weather, he stayed and worked at a small bank that Comerica had acquired in San Jose.

In 1993, Becker followed his manager to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). One of his first deals as a loan officer there was to lend $350,000 to a company that would get acquired by Cisco for $100 million. In 1996, he opened the bank's branch in Boulder, Colorado.

In 1999, he returned to Silicon Valley to found SVB Capital, the group's venture capital fund management division. He rose through the ranks to become the bank's chief banking officer, chief operating officer, and, in 2008, its president. He was promoted to president of parent company SVB Financial Group in 2010, then became the chief executive officer of both companies on April 21, 2011.