Jason Klein, general counsel and senior vice president at USAA, is to expand his role to become the company’s chief corporate governance officer. He will succeed Amy Cook, the current chief corporate governance officer, who will retire from USAA next year.
Klein will continue to report to USAA chief legal officer Bob Johnson, who joined the company in 2020 from Truist Financial Corporation, which was created by a merger between BB&T Corporation and SunTrust Banks.
Klein joined USAA in August 2020 after spending 17 years in the legal departments of JPMorgan Chase and Washington Mutual. At the former he was general counsel for legal operations and chief of staff for JPMorgan Chase’s general counsel. Before that he was general counsel for the company’s consumer banking and wealth management business and general counsel for its small business banking line of business. He was also involved in civil litigation and government and regulatory investigations.
Before moving in-house, Klein was a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle, Washington.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Cook joined USAA more than eight years ago. Before that, she spent more than 14 years with Capital One, including 12 years as senior director and associate general counsel and most recently as vice president for enterprise risk management.
Johnson says in a statement: ‘As a member-owned association, USAA considers good corporate governance an essential part of serving our members with excellence. I’m grateful to Amy for her dedication and leadership in ensuring that we maintain a strong corporate governance program and I know it will continue to be in great hands under Jason’s leadership. His legal experience and deep understanding of USAA make him the perfect fit for this expanded role.’
USAA, a private holding company for a diversified group of financial services firms with members rather than shareholders, won Corporate Secretary’s 2017 Corporate Governance Award for best overall governance at a private company.
Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
