Michael A. Callen


I. Professional

Mr. Callen started his business career with Citibank in New York in August, 1965. After a year of training, he took up his first overseas assignment in Manila in 1966. He moved to India in 1967 where he managed several divisions in Bombay and Calcutta. In 1970 he was sent to Beirut to establish a training center for all of Citibank’s operations in a 23 country region comprising the Middle East and North Africa. This training facility developed into a major professional university and by the early 1980’s had trained several thousand of the Bank’s recruits from all parts of the world.

In 1972 he assumed overall responsibility for the Bank’s business in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria while continuing to supervise the training center. His next assignment was Country Head of Pakistan and included responsibility for the surrounding countries. In 1974 he returned to Beirut as Citibank’s Regional Treasurer for the Middle East and North Africa. This position encompassed the management of all OPEC relationships immediately after the first oil price explosion. At this time he established Citibank’s operations in Bahrain as the focal point for the Bank’s funds flows from oil producing Arab states. Citibank’s initiatives in this respect resulted in Bahrain developing into a Middle East Financial Center of global significance.

In 1978 Callen moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as the Senior Officer for Citibank’s business in the Middle East. His first responsibility was to negotiate the conversion of Citibank’s branches in Saudi Arabia into a local subsidiary in which the public held a 60% share. The resulting entity, incorporated in 1980, became the Saudi American Bank which was and continues to be the most profitable and respected financial institution in the region. Callen was SAMBA’s first Managing Director and CEO until the end of 1981 when he was promoted to a position at the head office in New York.

From 1982 to1984 he was the Head of all Money Market and Foreign Exchange Trading for Citibank in North America as the Bank’s Treasurer. During that time Citibank gained significant market share in FX and became the most profitable trading bank in the world for several consecutive years. In 1984 he was appointed the “Senior Corporate Officer” for Latin America and Africa in order to attack the LDC debt problem that exploded in 1982. He was then invited to join the Corporation’s Policy Committee. This period marked a major crisis in Citicorp’s history as the burden of endangered debt threatened the life of the Corporation. He worked closely and intensely with the CEO to alleviate the enormous burden on the Bank’s capital and profitability. These responsibilities entailed negotiations with senior government officials in the debtor countries, the United States, the IMF and World Bank.

In October 1985 Callen was appointed Group Head for all of Citicorp’s corporate banking activity in North America, at that time the largest of any financial institution in the United States. The competitive pressures on bank spreads were extraordinary in the 1980’s and all commercial banks faced enormous challenges in achieving satisfactory returns on their commitments to these areas. He successfully led a restructuring of this business by establishing a new and distinct business proposition and a new culture. The foundation was set in place to bring about a highly profitable wholesale business for Citicorp in North America. As a result of this success Callen was appointed to the Citicorp Board of Directors and given responsibility for the worldwide Investment Bank in August 1987. In this post Callen faced the challenge of bringing a traditional commercial banking culture into the competitive arena with the main line investment banks. Not only were the human resource and business strategy issues formidable, but legal and regulatory barriers stood in the way as well. During his five year tenure as the executive in charge of Citicorp’s wholesale global business the corporation became a major factor in structured finance and risk management services. Most market observers consider the progress that was made in the late 80’s in Citicorp’s investment banking effort to have been remarkable. The organization covered 93 countries and included 25,000 staff. Total trading revenues by the early ‘90’s were among the highest in the financial services industry. Costs were cut and investor relationships built.

By the end of the decade of the 80’s the aftermath of the earlier recession resulted in heavy credit losses for Citicorp as well as other major financial institutions in North America and Europe. By 1991 Citicorp was beginning to recover from the LDC crisis when it faced staggering losses in its consumer and commercial real estate portfolios. The Federal Reserve entered into a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Citicorp which stipulated action that the Bank’s Board was required to implement. As a part of these developments three of the five inside directors, including the President, were forced to resign from Citicorp. After a twenty-seven year career he left to join the faculty of Columbia Business School in January 1992.

In 1993 Callen was approached by the largest commercial bank in the Middle East, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia to assume the effective position of CEO and revive the Bank’s fortunes. Enticed by the challenge of reviving a failed entity, he moved to Jeddah in April 1993 where he remained until the middle of 1997. Diplomatic sensitivities connected to the Bank’s role in the affairs of the Saudi Government mandated that Callen become the “Senior Advisor to the Chairman,” also the owner, of the National Commercial Bank. During this period the staff was reduced from 7,500 to 3,800 while over 600 expatriates were imported to upgrade quality. The service levels jumped from dead last of twelve competitors to number 2 and market share increased from 21% to 29% of the market’s deposit base. Costs were reduced by more than one third and profitability was restored. Callen continues as a consultant to NCB and the Bank has continued to strengthen its position so that today it is rated as the second in the country behind the Saudi American Bank.

Concurrent with the work in Saudi Arabia Callen initiated a series of seminars in Russia under the auspices of KPMG Peat Marwick and US AID. He also undertook consulting assignments with several Russian banks in 1993. These assignments entailed quarterly trips to Russia. In 1995 he concluded that the circumstances surrounding the banking system in Russia were such that his efforts were bound to yield little. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable period given Callen’s long term interest in Russia’s history and language.

Since 1997 Callen has been engaged in a number of consulting relationships with troubled banks in Australia, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. His work, and that of the team he has forged, usually involves restructuring of the bank’s wholesale strategy and the training of its staff. A major effort was devoted to Korea’s largest banking institution which resulted from a forced merger of four failed institutions. In the year 2000 he was invited to join the Board of the Woori Financial Group, the parent holding company of these four banks. He was honored to be a Westerner invited to a major Korean Board where there was no associated equity investment. After one year of service to Woori he asked to step down in view of the increasingly frequent long trips and recognition that the Korean government lacked the resolve to deal with the bank’s issues. Two of Callen’s team members continued to work for the Bank under his supervision.

After teaching several workshops and seminars in 2001 at Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service program he has undertaken to develop and teach several seminars starting in September, 2002, but continues to maintain international consulting relationships.

II. Board Memberships:

Ambac Financial Group --1992 to Present
(Board Member and Chairman, Audit Committee)
Intervest Bancorp, New York – 1993 to Present
Woori Financial Group – (to Mid-2002)
Grameen, USA – (to Mid-2002)
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University

Memberships:
Council on Foreign Relations. 1990 to present