Ralph Mesick joins CPB as senior executive vice president and chief risk officer

Ralph Mesick, a Hawaiʻi banker with nearly 40 years of financial services experience, has joined Central Pacific Bank (CPB) as its senior executive vice president and chief risk officer, according to an announcement by Arnold Martines, CPB chairman, president and chief executive officer.

“We want to be sure we are prepared for the increase in regulatory oversight the banking industry is currently going through,” said Martines. “Ralph will play a key role in helping us successfully manage the changing regulatory environment and strengthen our overall risk management infrastructure.”

At the bank, Mesick will oversee key risk functions and be a member of the bank’s Executive Committee.

“I am grateful to have this opportunity to join Central Pacific Bank,” said Mesick. “The bank was started for our community, by our community, and I look forward to helping build our capacity to best serve all of our stakeholders in that very spirit.”

Mesick holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa as well as a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Banking, Finance, and Investments from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also completed an Advanced Risk Management Program at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, he graduated at the top of his recruitment class and is a former police officer with the Honolulu Police Department.

Active in community affairs, he is a former chairman of the State of Hawaiʻi Housing Finance and Development Corporation, the Hawaiʻi District Council of the Urban Land Institute, and the Hawaiʻi Community Reinvestment Corporation. He is a past regent of Chaminade University and served on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of Hawaiʻi, the Saint Francis Health Care System, and the Kapiʻolani Hospital Foundation. Mesick currently serves on the board of HomeAid Hawaiʻi, a non-profit builder that focuses on the homeless and is engaged with initiatives to support residents displaced by the wildfires in Maui. He is a trustee at Saint Louis School and a member of the finance council for the Roman Catholic Church in Hawaiʻi, Diocese of Honolulu.