William R. "Bill" Rhodes is President and CEO of William R. Rhodes Global Advisors, LLC, and professor-at-large at Brown University. He is also a senior advisor for Citi, having stepped back from full-time responsibilities after more than 53 years. He is the retired Senior Vice Chairman and Senior International Officer of Citigroup and Citibank.
Rhodes was educated at Northfield Mount Hermon, a college preparatory school, and Brown University; he joined Citibank in 1957. As the Senior International Officer for Citigroup, Mr. Rhodes had specific responsibilities for client relationships in emerging markets worldwide, relationships with governments and other official institutions and appointments of Citibank's senior country officers outside the U.S.
Mr. Rhodes gained a reputation for international financial diplomacy in the 1980s for his leadership in helping manage the external-debt crisis that involved many developing nations and their creditors worldwide. During that period and in the 1990s he headed the advisory committees of international banks that negotiated debt restructuring agreements for Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. In 1998, when The Republic of Korea experienced liquidity problems, Mr. Rhodes chaired the international bank group that negotiated the extension of short-term debt of the Korean banking system. In early 1999, at the request of the Government of Brazil, he acted as worldwide coordinator implementing the maintenance of trade and interbank lines by foreign commercial banks to Brazil. He has since served as a trusted advisor to governments, financial officials and corporations worldwide.
A native of New York City, Mr. Rhodes joined Citibank in 1957. He served in a variety of senior positions in Latin America and the Caribbean for 20 years prior to returning to New York in 1977 as head of the Latin American corporate business. He was Senior Executive-International before being named a Director and Vice Chairman on July 16, 1991.
Mr. Rhodes is a Director of the Private Export Funding Corporation; a Senior Advisor to the World Economic Forum; Chairman of the US-Korea Business Council; Vice Chairman Emeritus of the Institute of International Finance; Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations; a Director of the US-Hong Kong Business Council; a Director of the Korea Society; a Director of the U.S. - China Business Council; a Member of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait; a Senior Advisor to Oliver Wyman. Other board memberships include the Foreign Policy Association and the Asia Society.
He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Economic Club of New York, and a member emeritus at the Group of Thirty.
Mr. Rhodes is a past Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Committee of the Export-Import Bank of the United States; past Chairman of the U.S. section of the Venezuela-U.S. Business Council; past President of the Venezuela-American Chamber of Commerce; and past President of the Bankers Association for Foreign Trade.
He is a Governor and Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital; a member of the Lincoln Center Consolidated Corporate Fund Leadership Committee and a Vice Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Business Committee and Chairman's Committee. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Board od Directors of both the Americas Society and its affiliate the Council od the Americas and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Northfield Mount Hermon School.
In 2007, Rhodes donated $10 million to Brown for the establishment of the Rhodes Center for International Economics at the Watson Institute.
In 2011 William Rhodes' book, 'Banker to the World: Leadership Lessons From the Front Lines of Global Finance' was published by McGraw-Hill.
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