Nicholas Institute Board of Advisors
William
R. Rhodes
Bill Rhodes is the Senior International Officer for Citigroup.
He has specific responsibilities for client relationships
worldwide, as well as for relationships with governments and
other official institutions. He is a member of Citigroup's
Operating and Management Committees.
Mr. Rhodes gained a reputation for international financial diplomacy in the 1980s
because of his leadership in helping manage the external-debt crisis that involved
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, Jamaica Mexico, Peru, and
Uruguay. In 1998, when the Republic of Korea experienced liquidity problems,
he 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 to help implement the maintenance
of trade and interbank lines by foreign commercial banks to Brazil.
Mr. Rhodes is a Director of ConocoPhillips; a Director of Banamex; a Director
of the Private Export Funding Corporation; First Vice Chairman of the Institute
of International Finance; Chairman of the Americas Society and Council of the
Americas; Chairman of the U.S.-Korea Business Council; Vice Chairman of the Board
of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations; a Director of the U.S.-Russia
Business Council; a Director of the U.S.-Hong Kong Business Council; a member
of South African President Thabo Mbeki’s International Advisory Board and Colombian
President Uribe’s Advisory Board; a member of the Inter-American Development
Bank’s Private Sector Advisory Board; a member of the International Policy Committee
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and a director of the Foreign Policy Association.
He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Group of Thirty,
The Economic Club of New York, and a founding member of the U.S. National Advisory
Council to the International Management Center in Budapest, Hungary.
Mr. Rhodes is a Governor and Trustee of The 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 a member of the Board of Overseers of the Watson
Institute for International Studies and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees
of the Northfield Mount Hermon School.
He has received decorations and honors from various governments and institutions,
including an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from his alma mater Brown University,
Chevalier and Officer of France's Legion of Honor, decorations from Korea, Brazil,
Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, and Jamaica, and multiple awards from not-for-profit
organizations in recognition of his contributions to international banking and
finance.
Mr. Rhodes joined Citibank in 1957 after graduating from Brown University.
