Colorado and New York Bankers Receive ABA Distinguished Service Awards for Risk, Compliance

David A. Kelly, retiring chief risk officer for FirstBank Holding Company and Greg Imm, retired chief compliance officer and senior executive vice president at M&T Bank, have received the 2024 American Bankers Association’s Distinguished Service Award for Risk and the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance, respectively, the association announced today. The awards, which recognize leadership, initiative and accomplishment in banking regulatory risk and compliance management, as well as volunteer service through ABA, were presented during ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle.

“We are proud to recognize Dave and Greg as this year’s Distinguished Service Award recipients,” said Ginny O’Neill, ABA’s executive vice president of regulatory compliance and policy. “They dedicated their careers to enhancing bank risk and compliance management, and we congratulate them on this achievement and their well-deserved retirements.”

ABA Distinguished Service Award for Risk

Kelly has more than 30 years of experience in compliance and risk management and was responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing the enterprise risk management processes for FirstBank Holding Company. He established the bank’s stress test practices and provided senior management oversight to several divisions, including loan review, appraisal, compliance, risk management, anti-money laundering, data analytics, cybersecurity, security, business continuity, third party risk management and government relations. 

Kelly served on a variety of committees for FirstBank Holding Company, the Colorado Bankers Association, the American Bankers Association and other organizations. At FirstBank, he chaired the Risk Committee and served on the Funds Management Committee, Loan Committee, Security and Technology Risk Committee, Internal Compensation Committee, and regularly reported to the bank’s Board and Audit Committee.

He was chairman for the board of the Colorado Bankers Association and served on the CBA’s Government Affairs Committee and Legislative Review Subcommittee. Kelly also participated on the Advisory Boards for the American Bankers Association’s Risk Management School and Certified Enterprise Risk Professional (CERP) program, was chairman of the American Bankers Association’s Real Estate Appraisal Subcommittee and served on ABA’s Government Relations Council Administrative Committee. Additionally, he served on the Board of Trustees of The Appraisal Foundation and as the chairman of its Boards Nominating Committee, but currently resides as director on the Colorado State Banking Board.

ABA Distinguished Service Award for Compliance

During his time at M&T Bank, Imm was responsible for enterprise-wide compliance management for state and federal laws impacting the bank, the trust bank, and international operations. This included compliance with BSA/AML, core “traditional” banking laws and regulations, wealth and institutional compliance, responsible and fair banking, and corporate compliance rules.

Imm came to M&T Bank after serving as chief compliance officer and director of community and economic development for Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, Ohio. Prior to joining Fifth Third, he was the chief compliance officer for OneWest Bank in Pasadena, California and with Washington Mutual in Seattle. He was in charge of Washington Mutual’s corporate compliance function, including fair lending, privacy, HMDA, complaints, examination management, and UDAAP, as well as the compliance programs for all home secured products, both servicing and production.

Imm also spent 15 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as both a field examiner, and senior manager in charge of the Compliance Portfolio Management Program.

Imm played  an active role in ABA regulatory policy committees throughout his career, including the CFPB Supervisory Peer Group and the Compliance Administrative Committee. Additionally, he taught the next generation of compliance leaders as a board member and faculty member of the ABA Compliance Schools. He was also a regular speaker at the ABA Risk and Compliance Conference and often volunteered to help with ABA workshops and webinars.