Citi exec William R. Rhodes to retire

Citigroup Inc. said Wednesday that William R. Rhodes will retire as senior vice chairman of Citigroup and senior vice chairman of Citibank on April 30 following a 53-year career with the financial services company. Rhodes will continue to serve the New York-based bank as a senior adviser, reporting to CEO Vikram Pandit. Rhodes joined Citibank in 1957 after graduating from Brown University. He helped lead Citi's expansion into several markets, including Central and Eastern Europe and China. He also helped reopen Citi's offices in South Africa following the election of President Nelson Mandela, and assisted the bank in navigating the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. Rhodes gained a reputation for international financial diplomacy in the 1980s as a result 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 restructured debt burdens for Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. Rhodes also chaired the international bank group that negotiated the extension of short-term debt of the Korean banking system in 1998 when that nation faced liquidity issues. Rhodes plans to dedicate more time to the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at Brown University and to Northfield Mount Hermon School, where he is chairman emeritus.