Key Leader Biographies:
Mark L. O’Dell
Deputy Comptroller for Operational Risk
Mark L. O’Dell is the Deputy Comptroller for Operational Risk at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
Mr. O’Dell has nearly 30 years of bank supervision experience, including a variety of key supervisory positions that addressed
complex industry concerns. He assumed his current position in January 2004. He has examined community banks, large banks,
international branches, and troubled banks.
In this position, Mr. O’Dell oversees policy and examination procedures development addressing operational risk issues,
including bank information technology. The Operational Risk division is also the focal point for the OCC’s core policy platforms
that govern how the OCC supervises national banks. Mr. O’Dell also manages policies and activities underlying the OCC’s
supervision by risk philosophy.
His division, through participation on the Interagency Operational Risk Working Group, is responsible for developing U.S.
supervisory policy implementing Basel II’s Advance Measurement Approach (AMA) for operational risk. As a part of his Basel
responsibilities, Mr. O’Dell is the OCC’s representative to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Accord Implementation
Group – Operational Risk (AIGOR). AIGOR is a permanent working group of the Accord Implementation Group focusing on the
practical challenges associated with the successful development, implementation and maintenance of an AMA operational risk
framework. The group also facilitates the resolution of issues associated with the cross-border supervision of operational risk.
Mr. O’Dell began his career as a Bank Examiner in Colorado. From 1990 to 1993, Mr. O’Dell worked in OCC's London office
examining branches of the largest U.S. banks located in Europe. Later he served as the Director for Analysis in the OCC's Large
Bank Division, which supervised twelve of the largest national banks in the United States. His duties as director included
managing the OCC’s Shared National Credit program -- an interagency program established in 1977 to provide a periodic credit
risk assessment of the largest and most complex credit facilities owned or agented by supervised institutions. Over a trillion
dollars of loans and loan commitments were typically reviewed each year. Through Mr. O’Dell’s efforts, summary SNC data and
results were shared with the industry for the first time
In 1997, Mr. O’Dell was asked to lead the OCC’s Year 2000 supervisory effort. During the next three years, Mr. O’Dell was
responsible for developing supervisory policy and examination procedures to assess national bank Year 2000 remediation efforts.
His duties also included being the OCC’s representative on the interagency task force that coordinated domestic supervisory Year
2000 efforts, as well as serving on the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversion. For his efforts, Mr. O’Dell was awarded the
Secretary of Treasury’s Award in 2001.
Mr. O’Dell was promoted to Deputy Comptroller for Core Policy in 2001. The Core Policy function was reorganized into
Operational Risk in 2004.
Mr. O'Dell joined the OCC in 1978 and was commissioned as a National Bank Examiner in 1983. He holds a BS in mathematics and an MBA from Colorado State University. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.
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