Derrick D. Cephas

Derrick D. Cephas is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Amalgamated Bank.

Prior to joining Amalgamated, Mr. Cephas was from 1994 to 2005 a banking and corporate law partner in the New York office of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, a leading New York law firm. Mr. Cephas was also a member of the firm's Management Committee for many years. While at Cadwalader, Mr. Cephas represented commercial banks, thrift institutions, bank holding companies and foreign banking corporations in a wide range of regulatory and transactional matters, including traditional lending, strategic planning, general regulatory and compliance issues, acquisitions, formation of de novo banks, product development, defense of bank regulatory enforcement actions, risk management and internal controls issues, issuance of debt and equity securities, obtaining regulatory authority to exercise expanded powers, director and trustee fiduciary duty issues and the negotiation of and compliance with supervisory orders.

Prior to joining Cadwalader, Mr. Cephas was from July 1991 to June 1994 the Superintendent of Banks for the State of New York. While Superintendent of Banks, Mr. Cephas became a nationally recognized leader in several areas of bank regulatory reform. His initiatives included efforts to reform the manner in which the Community Reinvestment Act is enforced, the creation and implementation of a more rational and hospitable regulatory and supervisory environment for foreign banks to do business in the United States, the revision of the regulations governing the conversion of mutual thrift institutions to stock form and the enactment of interstate branch banking legislation.

Prior to becoming Superintendent of Banks, Mr. Cephas was a partner at the New York law firm of Breed, Abbott & Morgan, where he specialized in corporate and bank regulatory law. Mr. Cephas has significant experience in public policy matters relating to the banking industry. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Dime Savings Bank of New York and Merrill Lynch International Bank and is currently a director of D.E. Shaw & Co. Inc., the Fresh Air Fund and the United Hospital Fund. He has testified numerous times before the New York State Legislature, the U.S. Congress, regulatory bodies and legislative panels.

Mr. Cephas graduated from Harvard College in 1975 and from Harvard Law School in 1979. He was born in Cambridge, Maryland in 1952.