Michael D. O'Neill, Vice Chair

Residence

Charlestown 

A life-long Bostonian, Michael has spent more than 25 years as a leader in Boston’s leading financial service firms including SBLI, U.S. Trust and Citizens Financial Group.

In 2014, Michael joined Zozimus, an 85+ person agency headquartered in Boston (with NY and LA offices as well), to run its Financial Services practice. As Executive Vice President, Michael and his team provide award-winning Creative, PR and Digital marketing services for banks, insurance companies and other financial service providers. Michael also oversees the Account Management process for Zozimus.

Michael began his career in finance at U.S. Trust where he served as a Commercial Lender, Team Leader and Regional President. In his last role, Michael drove the acquisition by U.S. Trust of Brewer & Lord, one of the region’s oldest and largest independent insurance agencies.

In 2000, upon the completion of Citizens Bank’s acquisition of U.S. Trust, Michael became President of Citizens Financial Group’s Insurance Services, overseeing efforts to grow the acquired property & casualty insurance agency through acquisition, cross-sell and organic growth. Michael also oversaw all commercial sales management for the New England region of Citizens, spearheading the Bank’s commercial cross-sell, incentive and marketing efforts.

Upon the successful divestiture of Citizens’ Insurance Services division, Michael then joined U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management as a Private Client Advisor, where as a Registered Investment Advisor he oversaw a team of wealth professionals serving the financial and investment needs of high net worth individuals.

While at both Citizens and Bank of America, Michael served on the Board of Directors of SBLI of MA, representing their shareholder interest in the life insurance company. In 2010, he joined the company full-time as SVP of Marketing & Distribution, with direct responsibility for all marketing and revenue generation. While leading the sales and marketing efforts at SBLI of MA, they expanded their sales footprint from 15 to 49 states, revamped their distribution networks and dramatically changed their digital marketing efforts, with direct bottom-line improvement.

Michael served as Chair of the Boston School Committee from 2013-2017, during which time he oversaw the Strategic Planning process for the School Committee, the Superintendent Search process that resulted in the hiring of Superintendent Tommy Chang, and the development of the Opportunity & Achievement Gap Task Force.

Michael serves as Chair of the Board of the Council of Great City Schools (CGCS), which is the main governing body of the coalition of the nation’s 76 big city school districts. Additionally, Michael serves as Chair of the Private Industry Council’s Youth Council, overseeing all federal Workforce Investment Act funding for youth efforts.

Michael is a graduate of Boston Latin School, Boston College, Babson College, the Stonier Graduate School of Banking, and Royal Bank of Scotland/Harvard Business School Executive Leadership Programme.