Head of Corporate Investment Banking for the Americas, Mizuho Financial Group
To say 2019 has been a busy year for Michal Katz fails to capture the whirlwind of activity and change that has surrounded her for the past 12 months.
As managing director and co-head of Global Technology Investment Banking for RBC Capital Markets, Katz helped create a business that ranked second by number of deals in the tech IPO space this year. Along the way, she guided RBC’s participation in some of the biggest IPOs in recent memory, with RBC acting as a bookrunner for the stock market debuts of numerous tech sector “unicorns,” including Uber, Lyft and Pinterest.
And then, she resigned.
Katz gave her notice at RBC on Aug. 1, and began her mandatory three-month “garden leave,” which will end on Nov. 1, when she will become the new head of Corporate Investment Banking in the Americas, for the Japanese banking giant Mizuho Financial Group.
In many ways, Katz’s jump to the role at Mizuho, where she will oversee investment banking across multiple business sectors rather than one, makes sense given her background. She has made a career out of being a bridge between the tech communities in Silicon Valley and New York’s Silicon Alley. A native of Israel, she has also forged connections between the tech sector in that country and U.S. investors. Her deep understanding of the world of technology, she said, will help her be effective in her new role.
“Technology is underpinning the digital transformation that is touching every industry out there,” she said. “We're in this period of disruption, whether it be across our economy or across industries. I would say even society at large is going through all these structural changes.”
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Her experience, she said, “has put me in a very unique position to think through this. Whether it be technology as a sector, where my old world used to be, or in my new role, which is going to be touching across nine or 10 industry groups that are being impacted by technology across the board.”
Outside of the office, Katz is treasurer and trustee on the board of the GRAMMY Foundation, a not-for-profit arm of the Recording Academy, and is active in the organization’s efforts to support music education in underserved schools. “I've been involved with that for quite some time and love watching the impact of this on music educators and music programs, and watching students be beneficiary of that,” she said.
