Woke exec ‘asleep at the wheel’

As the Silicon Valley Bank catapulted toward collapse, its head of risk management spent considerable time spearheading “woke” LGBTQ+ programs, and at least one top business mogul thinks there could be a link.

Jay Ersapah (inset), the boss of Financial Risk Management at SVB’s UK branch, also launched the company’s first monthlong Pride campaign and a blog emphasizing mentalhealth awareness for LGBTQ+ youth.

“The phrase ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ resonates with me,” Ersapah was quoted on the company website as saying. “As a queer person of color and a first-generation immigrant from a workingclass background, there were not many role models for me to ‘see’ growing up.”

Her efforts as the company’s European LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group co-chair earned her a spot on SVB’s “outstanding LGBT+ Role Model Lists 2022” that was shared in a company post just four months before the bank was shut down by federal authorities over liquidity fears.

In addition to instituting SVB’s first “safe-space catch-up” — which encouraged employees to share their coming-out stories — and serving on LGBTQ+ panels around the world, Ersapah also spent time over the past year serving as a director for Diversity Role Models.

Ersapah couldn’t be reached for comment.

SVB was abruptly shut down Friday by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation shortly after it disclosed it had taken a $1.8 billion hit from a $21 billion fire sale of its bond holdings.

On Saturday, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus insinuated that “woke” policies like the ones launched by Ersapah could have led to SVB’s dramatic failure.

“I feel bad for all of these people that lost all their money in this woke bank. You know, it was more distressing to hear that the bank officials sold off their stock before this happened. It’s depressing to me,” he told Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

“Who knows whether the Justice Department would go after them? They’re a woke company, so I guess not. And they’ll probably get away with it.”

The businessman blamed the Biden administration for pushing companies and banks to consider global warming over shareholder returns, resulting in catastrophic economic pitfalls.

“These banks are badly run because everybody is focused on diversity and all of the woke issues and not concentrating on the one thing they should, which is, shareholder returns,” Marcus said.