Watch Video

As head of Comerica's Technology and Life Sciences Division in the Northeast, Dianne Russell oversees all lending to Life Sciences companies - including biotech, medical devices, bioinformatics and health-related companies. She has been responsible for the establishment of Comerica's national Life Sciences practice including the hiring of professionals with advanced degrees in molecular biology and medicine to build that practice.

Russell has extensive experience in the origination, negotiation and structuring of debt financings for companies at every stage of development from early stage pre-revenue companies to mature, profitable public corporations. She has managed specialized lending groups including those dedicated to M&A, leveraged buyouts and recapitalization. Formerly a Senior Vice President and Department Executive at Bank of Boston, Russell headed that bank's leveraged buyout operations while Division Executive of Acquisition Finance. Subsequently, she ran Large Corporate Banking which encompassed the five geographical lending regions covering the United States, plus two specialty groups, Acquisition Finance and Environmental Services.

Currently a member of the Board of Directors of Morton's Restaurant Group, Inc, she has also served on the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and for the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University. Russell was appointed by Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld to the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency (MDFA), the state's development bank where she was named Treasurer and served as head of the agency's credit committee. She is currently Chairman of the Financial Advisory Board of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.