Peter Benham

Peter is a senior credit officer covering life sciences and healthcare, fintech and enterprise software corporate banking. He is responsible for asset quality, new loan approval and investment transactions as well as partnering with SVB experts to support client growth and success.

Formerly, Peter served as the head of Life Science & Healthcare Corporate Banking where he led a team that provides relationship management and financing solutions to public and private companies in all healthcare sectors nationwide. Prior to heading up SVB’s Healthcare Corporate Banking practice, Peter served as a managing director and team leader of the East Coast life science and healthcare sponsor finance team. In this role, he worked closely with a network of top-tier financial sponsors and industry experts to support innovative solutions in healthcare. In 2018, Peter was the recipient of the prestigious SVB President’s Award.

Before joining SVB in 2017, Peter spent more than 14 years at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and its predecessors. As a senior vice president, he covered technology companies at all growth stages and worked extensively with private equity firms. Earlier, Peter was a managing director and team leader in asset securitization, and he also worked in the healthcare and corporate banking groups. Prior to his time at Bank of America, he was senior vice president at RBS Citizens, where he helped create the lender finance group.

Peter also has direct experience working at private equity-backed companies. He joined NewStar Financial when it was a startup and remained with the company after it successfully went public. As a managing director at NewStar, he helped build the structured products group and worked in leveraged finance, providing senior and subordinated capital for sponsor-backed transactions in healthcare, technology and financial services.

Peter earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. He also completed the Leadership and Strategic Impact Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and previously gained his Series 7 and Series 63 licenses from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Peter is currently a member of the Board of Advisors for Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Needham, Massachusetts, a member of Beth Israel Lahey Health.