Richard Gold, Advisor

Rich Gold is a seasoned board member, leader, and senior executive with 40 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to his retirement in 2023, Rich served as President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of M&T Bank Corporation, a bank with 23,000+ employees and over $200B in assets. Rich remains on the board of directors of M&T Bank. During his 34-year tenure at M&T, he amassed deep experience in building and growing businesses, mergers & acquisitions, risk management, talent development, and leadership. He is widely credited with leading and preserving M&T’s unique community-grounded culture through decades of extraordinary growth and transformation. In 2014, prior to becoming President & COO, Rich was named Chief Risk Officer (CRO). As CRO, he was responsible for successfully leading M&T through a series of highly complex regulatory challenges.

Rich is highly regarded as a leader and developer of leaders for M&T and the Western New York community. As an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo’s graduate school of business for the past eleven years, Rich teaches students how to improve employee engagement and maximize output by leveraging principles of behavior science. Rich’s course is perennially among the highest-rated in the university’s MBA program.

Rich holds a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.