25 Most Powerful Women in Banking 2005
25 Women to Watch 2005Lifetime Achievement AwardMarjorie MagnerFormer Chairman and CEO Global Consumer Group Citigroup Ask almost any woman in financial services who she considers an icon of influence and, in less than a minute, Marjorie Magner’s name pops up. With good reason: She has more than 30 years of experience in the business and ran one of the most profitable enterprises in corporate America. As chairman and CEO of the Global Consumer Group, Ms. Magner led Citigroup’s efforts to serve customers through credit cards, retail banking and consumer finance. These businesses, which consistently generate more than 50 percent of Citigroup’s total profits, serve more than 200 million customer accounts worldwide. She led nearly 200,000 employees in her organization. Ms.Magner was a member of Citigroup’s Management Committee and chaired the Global Consumer Planning Group. She was also chairman of the Citigroup Foundation and a tireless advocate for financial education, diversity and community involvement. Under her leadership, the GCG posted a solid track record of steady growth and is well positioned to leverage growth opportunities in emerging consumer markets throughout the world.Ms.Magner, who has been instrumental in many of Citigroup’s consumer acquisitions and its subsequent integrations, has helped develop a strong, transferable business model that places the GCG in an attractive position to increase its market share and customer base. In 1987, Ms. Magner joined CitiFinancial (previously Commercial Credit), a predecessor company to Citigroup. She was named chairman and CEO of the GCG in August 2003. For the last four years, Ms. Magner has been named to Fortune’s list of Most Powerful Women in Business; in 2004, she was ranked #5. Ms.Magner currently serves as chairman of the Brooklyn College Foundation and as a member of the Dean’sAdvisory Council for the Krannert School ofManagement at Purdue University. She is also a member of the Board of Overseers of Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University and is a member of the Advisors Group for the United Nations Year of Microcredit. A longtime champion of education and welfare-to-work programs,Ms.Magner has served on a variety of boards that address women’s and children’s issues and has received a number of awards and honors for this work. In addition to 25 years of outstanding professional achievement, the ability to inspire excellence in others and an unrelenting commitment to use personal influence to support education, equal opportunity and diversity will serve as deciding factors in determining who receives the Marjorie Magner Lifetime Achievement Award in coming years. Lifetime Achievement AwardMarion O. SandlerChairman & Co-CEO Golden West Financial Corp With more than 40 years of financial services experience, Marion O. Sandler is perhaps best defined as “influence personified.” The publicly traded corporation she heads had 2004 revenues of $4.5 billion and profits of over $1.3 billion. Golden West Financial Corp.’s board of directors, which Mrs. Sandler chairs, has the distinction of being the Fortune 500 company with the highest percentage of women directors. Mrs. Sandler, together with her husband, Herbert, founded Golden West in Oakland, CA, in 1963. Since then, the company has grown to become one of the nation’s largest financial institutions with assets of more than $115 billion, operations in 38 states and 11,000 employees as of June 30, 2005. There are at least three aspects of Mrs. Sandler’s management position that are unusual. She is a top executive who is a woman; she is one of only nine women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies; and she is part of a husband-and-wife team. This unique combination has worked. Golden West is considered to be one of the best-managed financial institutions by many industry observers and has been the subject of many feature articles in respected publications; Fortune recently named Golden West the nation’s most admired mortgage-services company, and, on seven separate occasions, America’s most admired savings institution. Earlier this year,Morningstar recognized Marion and Herbert Sandler as CEOs of the Year, one of many honors bestowed on Mrs. Sandler over the years. Confining her outside activities to the nonprofit sector, Mrs. Sandler devotes her time and energies to organizations dealing with education, poverty and government issues. While many nonprofits benefit from her expertise, it is her role as founder and board member of the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C. think tank, where her external influence is most pronounced. The think tank’s objective is to ensure that national policies reflect progressive thinking, thoughtful policy alternatives, and American values in keeping with the pursuit of liberty, community and shared responsibility. Her involvement in the Center for American Progress, a vital source of non-partisan research and information, serves a greater good in society by encouraging dialogue that influences national policies. In addition to 25 years of outstanding professional achievement, this kind of social and political activism will be the foundation for determining who receives the Marion O. Sandler Lifetime Achievement Award in coming years. |
