LATCAM is very honored and pleased to offer a webinar featuring as guest speaker William R. Rhodes, one of the world’s most respected and knowledgeable experts in international finance. Mr Rhodes will discuss topics such as: Why is the Latin American region most affected of all by the COVID-19 pandemic? Can this situation evolve into a debt crisis? What recommendations can be given to Latin American governments for the next 18 months?

Our Speaker:

   William R. Rhodes

Bill Rhodes is President & CEO, William R. Rhodes Global Advisors, LLC which was founded in 2010.  Having stepped back from full time responsibilities with Citi after more than 53 years with the institution. He most recently served as senior advisor, senior vice chairman and senior international officer of Citigroup and Chairman, President & CEO of Citibank, N.A. before his retirement in 2010.  Subsequent to his retirement, he continued to serve as a senior advisor to Citi from 2010 through 2017.

Mr. Rhodes gained a reputation for international financial diplomacy in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of his leadership in helping manage the external-debt crisis that involved developing nations and their creditors worldwide. He headed the advisory committees of international banks that negotiated debt-restructuring agreements for Argentina, Brazil, Iraq, Jamaica, Korea, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. He has since served as a trusted advisor to governments, financial officials, and corporations worldwide.  In 2011, Rhodes published Banker to the World:  Leadership Lessons from the Front Lines of Global Finance.

Mr. Rhodes is a Life Trustee of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital; where he has established the William Rhodes and Louise Tilzer-Rhodes Center for Glioblastoma; a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Chairman’s Council and a vice chairman of the Business Committee.  He is chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Northfield Mount Hermon School where he helped establish the Rhodes Arts Center.  He also received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from his alma mater Brown University, where he established the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance

He has received decorations and honors from various governments and institutions, including Officer and Chevalier of France’s Legion of Honor; decorations from Poland, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Jamaica; and multiple awards from not-for-profit organizations such as the Africa-America Institute, Arab Bankers Association of North America, the America-Israel Friendship League and Sciences Po Foundation, Pro Mujer, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boy’s Scouts Award  in recognition of his contributions to international banking and finance.

Mr. Rhodes is a director of the Private Export Funding Corporation; Senior Advisor Emeritus to Oliver Wyman; a member of chairman’s advisory council and Senior Fellow for The Hudson Institute; member of the board of directors for The Volker Alliance; chairman emeritus of the U.S.-Korea Business Council; vice chairman of the National Committee on U.S. – China Relations; a director of the Korea Society; a director of the American Friends Musée d’Orsay, Ambassador to the Notre-Dame de Paris Circle of Ambassadors, and a member of the board at the Foreign Policy Association.  He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Group of Thirty, the Advisory Council of the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce, member of the executive committee, Bretton Woods Committee board of directors and member of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University.  He is the first vice chairman emeritus of the Institute of International Finance and chairman emeritus and member of the board of Directors of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. He previously served as chairman of the New York Blood Center, the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade and the U.S. Hong Kong Business Council.

Our Moderator:

   Carlos E. Represas

Between 1968 and 2004, Carlos E. Represas held various senior positions at Nestlé in the US, Latin America and Europe, including Executive Vice President and Head of the Americas of Nestlé S.A. in Switzerland from 1994 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board of Nestlé Group Mexico from 1983 to 2010.

Carlos E. Represas served in the Board of Directors of Swiss Re Group in Zurich (2010-2018) and in the Board of Swiss Re Americas in New York, USA (2010-2020). He was also a Board Director at Merck & Co., Inc. (2009-2018) and at Bombardier, Inc. (2004-2018). Since 2011 Carlos is Chairman (non-executive) Latin America of Bombardier, Inc. He is also the President of the Mexico Chapter of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland, a member of the Latin America Business Council (CEAL) and a Trustee at the National Health Institute of Genomic Medicine in Mexico.

Carlos E. Represas, Mexican and Spanish citizen, was born in 1945 and graduated with an economics degree from the National University of Mexico and earned an industrial economics degree at the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. He has also completed different Postgraduate programs at IMD in Switzerland and at Harvard University in the U.S. He has been decorated by the governments of Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela and the Province of Québec. He was a recipient of the Gordon Grand Fellow Award from Yale University, and a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universidade Federal de Viçosa in Brazil.

Special welcome remarks:

   Linda Walker

Linda Walker graduated in 1977 with a MBA at George Washington University, USA; in 1975 with a MA at the Sorbonne, Paris; in 1972 with a BA in French Literature at the University of Delaware, USA. Furthermore she did postgraduate studies at the universities of Munich and Saarbrücken, Germany. She worked twenty-one years with Citibank where she held positions in the USA, Peru, Venezuela, Greece and Switzerland in the areas of corporate, investment and private banking. In March 1998 she established Walker von Graffenried Asset Management Ltd. in Zurich. She is a Member of Comexi, Mexico, and Vice President of the board of the Latin American Swiss Chamber of Commerce.

In January 2016 she was appointed Honorary Consul of Mexico in Zürich and in the same year she founded the international Advisory Board of Takimundo, a school for children with hearing disabilities in Uruapan, Mexico. Linda Walker is fluent in French, German, Spanish, Greek, Italian in addition to her mother tongue of English.

This webinar was generously supported by

If you wish to read the Press Release about William Rhodes’s latest book «Banker to the World», please click on the following LINK

To view the webinar recording, please click on the following LINK