City National Corporation (NYSE:CYN) today announced that entrepreneur and former Los Angeles deputy mayor Linda Griego has been elected to the boards of directors of both the corporation and its subsidiary, City National Bank.

As president and chief executive officer of Griego Enterprises, Inc., Griego runs a business management company that oversees Engine Co. No. 28, a prominent Los Angeles restaurant that she founded in 1988 after spearheading the renovation of a historic downtown firehouse. She also owns Oso Ranch and Lodge in New Mexico, and has begun to develop television programming for the Latino market.

Griego has been involved in the banking industry for many years. In addition to having served other financial institutions in both board and advisory capacities, she was a director of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 1998 until 2003.

During the 1990s, Griego held a variety of government-related appointments at the local and federal levels. From 1991 to 1993, she served as deputy mayor of Los Angeles. From 1994 until 1997, she was president and chief executive officer of Rebuild L.A. (RLA), an agency that had been created to spearhead the inner city's economic recovery after the civil unrest in 1992. She went on to become interim president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Community Development Bank, a $430 million federally funded empowerment zone development bank. Then, in 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed her to NAFTA's North American Development Bank Community Adjustment Committee, a position she held for five years.

?Linda Griego is a successful entrepreneur and civic leader with significant experience in banking and as a director,? said City National Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Russell Goldsmith. ?She understands the clients and communities we serve and will make a strong contribution to our organization.?

Griego currently serves on the boards of directors of two other companies: Granite Construction Incorporated and AECOM Technology Corporation. She also serves as a trustee or director on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Public Policy Institute of California and the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles.

Griego has received business and civic leadership awards from organizations like the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); the Mexican American Bar Foundation; City of Hope; CORO; California State University at Los Angeles; the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles; the San Francisco Hispanic Foundation; the Los Angeles Business Council, and others.

Griego was born and raised in New Mexico and received her bachelor's degree from UCLA.

About City National

Backed by $14.6 billion in total assets, City National Corporation is the parent company of City National Bank, which provides banking, investment and trust services through 55 offices, including 12 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City.

City National is ranked among America's top companies in Forbes magazine's ?Super 500? list. It also is one of the nation's top wealth managers, according to Barron's magazine. The company and its affiliates manage or administer more than $48 billion in client trust and investment assets, including more than $27 billion under direct management.

For more information about City National, visit the company's Website at cnb.com.