Former Citigroup CEO to speak about future of banking industry

Senior Visiting Fellow at the Bendheim Center for Finance John Reed will speak tonight on banking technologies and how they will affect the banking industry. After holding the reins at Citigroup for 15 years, he ought to know.

Reed was born in Chicago in 1939 and moved to Argentina when he was 5 years old. His family lived in Brazil for a while, but then returned to Buenos Aires where Reed graduated from high school.

"It was a great time to do it," he said, reflecting on the move. It was in 1944, he recalled, just before D-Day.

"It was a fun place to live," he explained, noting that he learned to speak Spanish and a little Portuguese during his years in South America.

Reed frequently travels to Latin America, revisiting his childhood years. "I look back quite fondly on those years," he noted.

But growing up in South America was a very different experience from what Reed found when he returned to the United States for college.

He participated in a program offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which a student would attend a liberal arts school for three years and then MIT for two years, getting a degree at both institutions.

Reed began his college career at Washington and Jefferson College, a small school outside of Pittsburgh.

"It turned out to be a great way to not sort of be overwhelmed," he said, adding that had he gone directly to MIT, it would probably have been a culture shock. "I didn't even know where Pittsburgh was," he joked.

He then went on to the second part of the program, studying math at MIT, eventually getting a bachelor's degree there as well.

For two years after college — between 1962 and 1964 — Reed served as an officer in the U.S. Army. He then went back to MIT and earned a master's degree in 1965.

That same year, Reed went to work for Citibank, then called First National City Bank. He ascended the corporate ladder quickly, becoming a vice president, then senior vice president and finally chairman in 1982.

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Though he was doing well at Citibank, Reed said he did not plan on staying on as chairman after he turned 60 years old.

Keeping this goal in mind, he moved to Princeton in 1994, because he thought the area would be a good place to retire. Judging by the time since his retirement last year, he said it was a good choice.

"Fifteen years as a chairman is a long time," he said of his tenure at Citibank. "Maybe too long."

So, after 16 years at the helm, Reed retired last April.

Once he had retired, Reed was approached by Princeton, MIT and Stanford.

Since he only recently had settled in Princeton, Reed said the idea of moving to Palo Alto to work at Stanford really did not appeal to him.

Instead, he has been occupying himself by working at the University's Bendheim Center for Finance and teaching at MIT.

Reed is currently working with the Wilson School on management projects and also with the economics department.

Last Monday, Reed gave the first half of the two-part lecture that he will conclude tonight. The first installment was a retrospective on banking. Tonight he will be looking to the future of the banking industry.

The lecture will be held tonight at 5 p.m. in room 105 of the Computer Science building.