Bruce W. Leppla
Bruce W. Leppla

Bruce is Leppla Capital's Chairman and CIO. He's a lawyer, economist, and national lecturer for the International Foundation of Employee Benefits and the National Conference on Public Pension Plans on the topic of financial education. Bruce is dedicated to improving financial literacy nation-wide as a means of reducing income inequality and promoting social justice.
From 1984-1999, Bruce served as CEO and President of Redwood Bank, a San Francisco-based regional bank, which he grew into a substantial Bay Area bank and sold for 3.5x book value to a national bank. Bruce then built an insurance and employee benefits business, California Bankers’ Insurance Services. He sold his interest in the business to the California Bankers’ Association in 2002.
Bruce is a Partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, one of the nation’s foremost plaintiffs’ litigation firms. He's listed in Best Lawyers 2022 as within the top 5% of U.S. lawyers, and has been selected by Lawdragon as one of the "Top 500 Lawyers in the nation -- many would say the world" -- in representing plaintiffs in financial fraud litigation. With his partners, he represents many of the nation’s largest private and public investment firms in recovering investment losses due to corporate misconduct. He's a member of the New York and California Bar Associations and the Editorial Board of Wall Street Lawyer.
Bruce holds 11 U.S. and international patents in technology and commercial product design. In one capacity or another Bruce has been involved in the investment business for over 4 decades. He's raised over $135 million for ventures in banking, real estate, finance and technology.
Bruce grew up in Oregon working in commercial fishing, and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and a M.S. in Economics and J.D from U.C. Berkeley. He is a former member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs and the former Chairman of the San Francisco Chamber Singers. Bruce enjoys travel, fine dining, fly-fishing, surfing, skiing and golf.