Vladimir Fekula (Russyn Владимир Петрович Фекула; also known as Walter or Wally Fekula) was born in New York City on 25 May 1936.
Fekula had a distinguished career on Wall Street spanning more than forty years. Since retiring from the financial world in 2004, he has devoted himself full-time to charitable work.
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Vladimir's father, Peter Michael Fekula (Пётр Михайлович Фекула, 1900–1954), was the son of a Russian Orthodox priest of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry. Peter was born in Canada but grew up in the United States.
Vladimir's mother, Maria Ivanovna Karzubova (Мария Ивановна Карзубова, 1908–1991), was born in Moscow. Her Old Believer family immediately left Russia for Latvia after the 1917 Revolution.
Peter and Maria met when Peter was chief of Eastern European Sales at Ford Motor Company. They were married in Riga in 1929. Their son Alexis was born in Riga in 1931.
In 1936, the year of Vladimir's birth, the family moved from New York City to Sea Cliff, Long Island. There, with several other Russian families, they founded the Our Lady of Kazan Russian Orthodox Church in 1942.
Vladimir Fekula earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics Degree from the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity; then served in the United States Marine Corps before commencing his Wall Street career.
After completing a training program, Fekula was employed as a credit officer at the Chase Manhattan Bank.
He was then recruited by Goldman Sachs, where from 1965 to 1973 he managed the day-to-day Credit Review function of the Commercial Paper Department, Goldman Sachs being at that time the world's largest dealer in short-term notes.
In June, 1970 Penn Central declared bankruptcy with $82 Million of commercial paper outstanding. A year earlier, Credit Review had recommended Penn Central withdraw from the commercial paper market, but they had been over-ruled by the department head. Following the bankruptcy, a meeting chaired by John C. Whitehead resulted in the firm withdrawing certain issuers from the commercial paper market because of potential credit concerns. After court cases were settled, the head of Goldman Sachs' Commercial Paper Department was terminated.
In 1978, Fekula established the Credit Review Department at Salomon Brothers, then the largest government securities dealer in the world. Fekula restructured the approvals process so that the Credit Department reported to a Credit Committee which in turn reported to the Management Committee. Original members of the Credit Committee included James Wolfensohn, Lewis Ranieri, Thomas Strauss and Donald Feuerstein. All transactions that settled beyond the normal cash settlement period required Credit Department approval.
During the early 1980s a crisis developed in the savings and loan industry. Salomon Brothers quickly became the "private lender of last resort" by continuing to finance security positions. Salomon, with Fekula's recommendation and participation, met with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and an understanding was reached. The Federal Reserve Bank, wishing to avert a financial crisis, encouraged Salomon to continue financing the thrifts, and agreed not to interfere if Salomon found it necessary to liquidate positions.
In 1984, Fekula was appointed Manager of the Credit and Market Risk Department at First Boston Corporation. He continued in that position under the successor corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was also a member of the Investment Banking Screening Committee.
On December 6, 1994, Fekula signed a letter terminating and liquidating $2,614,218,000 in securities of Orange County, California for failure to pay monies owed. This represented the largest amount ever liquidated on a loan to that date.
After an unblemished record of over 40 years of successfully managing the credit function for major U.S. Investment banks, Fekula retired from Wall Street in 2004.
Fekula has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Russian Children's Welfare Society[1][2] (RCWS) in New York City since 2000. He is also a board member of the American Friends of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and was formerly on the Board of Directors of the Tolstoy Foundation and the Pearl Theatre Company.
Fekula is active in organizing fundraisers for the charities of which he is a board member, principally RCWS. In this capacity he has presented numerous major figures in opera, ballet, and classical music: Anna Netrebko, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Elina Garanča, Rolando Villazón, Piotr Beczala, Elena Obraztsova, Matthew Polenzani, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Diana Damrau, Kate Lindsey, Maija Kovalevska, Mikhail Petrenko, Hélène Grimaud, Lang Lang, Eteri Andjaparidze, Diana Vishneva, Irina Dvorovenko, Maxim Beloserkovsky, Veronika Part, Daniel Ulbricht, Maria Guleghina, Nina Kotova, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Paul Groves, Anna Alkhimova, Isabella Boylston, Irina Mishura, Gulnara Mitzanova, André Emelianoff, Anna Polonsky, Natasha Paremski, and Alexey Arkhipovskiy, among others.
An accomplished photographer, Fekula has had his work featured in Connoisseur magazine. In 1989, he was illustrator/photographer of a book published by the Office of the University Publisher, Harvard University which won first prize in "Professional Illustrated" books at the New England Book Show.
Vladimir married Beatrice Patricia (née Masson) on September 8, 1968. The Fekulas have one child, Natalia Fekula, born on April 8, 1971. Vladimir is also stepfather to Lisa and Christopher.
The 1996 novel Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream by John Derbyshire contains a character "Boris" based on Vladimir Fekula.