Teruo Asada: Staying The Course

A ship captain has the responsibility of keeping the ship safe and ultimately reaching its destination. If there is a storm it’s his responsibility to make sure the ship is alright.  Like the captain of a ship Teruo Asada was able to keep Japanese trading giant Marubeni safe and actually making a profit during tough economic times.

Teruo Asada has worked at Marubeni all his life. He joined the company straight out of college. Among the higher positions he has held include being the Senior Corporate Officer of Investor Relations and Corporate Vice President of Marubeni starting 2002. He also served as Corporate Senior Vice President of Marubeni Corporation as well as the General Manager of the Finance Department.

Asada served as the CEO and President of Marubeni Corporation from 2008 to April 1, 2013. Things were tough in 2008 but he skillfully guided the company through it as well as during the Japanese tsunami in 2011 and still managed to keep the balance sheet in the black.

Asada is a non-traditional Japanese manager and does not like to follow the seniority based ways of many large corporations. With the results he has produced it’s hard to argue with his philosophy. He now sits as Chairman of Marubeni.

  

Donald Layton: Balancing Life And Career

Donald Layton is not your average banker. He is the CEO of Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored enterprise and a publicly traded company and one of the largest sources of mortgage financing in the U.S.  It was established in 1970 by Congress to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage market. Just how large is Freddie Mac (or Federal Loan Mortgage Corporation)? In 2012 it had total assets of over a trillion dollars.

 It was one of the companies that got into serious trouble during the financial crisis and had to go under conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2008. This action has been described as one of the most sweeping government intervention in the private financial market in decades.  Partially due to its uniqueness the institution is making money again when it was thought that it would be one of the few government-bailed out institutions that would give a net loss to taxpayers.

To head this significant institution means you’ve already made a name for yourself in the banking and finance scene. Layton was appointed to this position in May 2012. Prior to his appointment he had a long career in the financial services. He worked for almost 30 years at JPMorgan and its predecessors.

Layton began as a trainee and eventually became vice chairman and a member of the three-person Office of the Chairman, retiring in 2004. In his more recent role he was the chairman and CEO of E*TRADE Financial which he guided through the recent financial crisis. Layton was a senior advisor to an industry association and has been a member of the boards of several financial services firms.

Layton also has outstanding academic credentials simultaneously earning Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in economics from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University.

The rise to the top involved a lot of hard work. In fact Layton and his wife had been married for 16 years before they had their first child in 1990 and another one in 1994. Since having his children he has led a more balance life instead of just living a career-centric existence. He came to realize what really was important in his life.

Evan Greenberg: The Consummate Insurance Man

You can say that insurance runs in the blood of Evan Greenberg. He father was the former Chairman of the American International Group (AIG).  Greenberg worked for 25 years under his father. Given his father’s insurance knowledge he must have learned a lot.

In those 25 years he has held a number of senior management positions at AIG. Among them were as CEO of AIG Far East and President and CEO of AIU (the foreign General Insurance of AIG).  From 1997 to 2000 he was already the President and COO of AIG.  It was widely thought that he would become the next CEO; for whatever reason Greenberg left AIG in 2000.

In 2001 he became the Vice Chairman of ACE Limited. This was just up his alley since ACE Limited is also in the insurance business.  The ACE group is a multiline property and casualty insurer and one of the largest in the world. The group offers products such as property insurance, personal accident, and life insurance.  This insurance company is based in Switzerland.

In 2004 he was elected as President and CEO of ACE Limited and in 2007 the title of Chairman of the Board was added. This shows Greenberg has been doing very well in leading the company. He still currently holds these positions.

In 2008 at the height of the financial crisis he was one of the executives who refused federal funding saying his company and the property insurance industry was able to take care of itself. This was not the case of AIG, the company he bolted many years ago.

Greenberg really knows the insurance industry.