Peter Nathanial

Experience & Background

Peter Nathanial provides strategic, risk management, and restructuring advice to major financial institutions, central banks, governments, and other international multi-lateral organizations from around the world. He has over 30 years’ experience and is frequently called on by organizations for his expertise as a leading professional in corporate/debt restructuring, risk-management and corporate governance, and is a frequent speaker on these topics at events. He also provides one-on-one professional coaching and mentorship to key executives and leaders.

Nathanial was Group Chief Risk Officer and member of the Executive Committee for The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, where he helped to navigate the institution during the global financial crisis for three years. In addition to working on a stabilization plan for the bank that included a special liquidity scheme and an eventual plan of nationalization, he established and managed a “bad bank” that contained trading and loan assets, as well as a global loan restructuring group within the Group.

Prior to The Royal Bank of Scotland, he spent more than 16 years at Citigroup, holding a variety of business management roles in New York, Zurich, London, Moscow, and Warsaw. In his last role at Citigroup, Peter was based in New York as a Senior Corporate Officer, Managing Director, and Head of Global Risk Oversight and Investments, where he had oversight of Citigroup’s asset management, insurance, alternative investments businesses, employee pension plans and country risk, as well as Citigroup’s proprietary M&A activities.

Nathanial co-founded and co-directed INSEAD’s flagship certification program for boards of directors in the banking and financial sector entitled Modern Governance in Banking and then IDBP (International Directors in Banking Programme) from 2016 to 2021. During this time, he was an Adjunct Professor and Fellow of the International Corporate Governance Centre of INSEAD. From 2019 to 2021, he also taught the Corporate Restructuring elective course as part of INSEAD’s MBA program.

Originally from Australia, he is now based in the United States and serves on several private advisory boards, boards of directors, and multi-family offices around the world. He has also previously served on the boards of publicly listed companies in Brazil, and as President and board member of a NASDAQ-listed company and SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) in the US.

Nathanial is a founding member of the International Financial Risk Institute and a former member of the President’s Council of the International Crisis Group, and was conferred as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers Scotland in 2007. He holds a BA from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Expertise & Interests

Banking governance and boards of directors, crisis management and restructuring, business models and re-organization, international and cross-cultural stakeholder management and integration. He enjoys playing polo.

Contributions to IMD

Co-direction and teaching on IMD’s Bank Governance program.