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Postcard from Honduras

March 29, 2016
Reina Irene Mejía, Citi Country Officer, Honduras

Around the world, Citi Country Officers (CCOs) work to balance the execution of their country business strategy with their responsibilities to ensure the safety and soundness of the Citigroup franchise. Through this blog series, we are pleased to share perspectives from CCOs around the world, as well an insider's look at the countries and cities where Citi operates.

Tell Us about Honduras

Official language: Spanish

Currency: Lempira

Population: 8,725,000

Weather: We have only two seasons: dry and rainy. The rainy season begins in May and extends up to the month of July with a pause during the month of August, after which it usually resumes in September and runs up to November when the dry season begins. The dry season extends until the month of April or May. The high temperature across the country average is 32°C (90°F), while the low-temperature is 20°C (68°F).

Honduran Cuisine/Best Places to Dine: Baleadas; nacatamales; carne asada; frijoles fritos, plátanos, cuajada, queso. Best places to dine: it depends what you want to taste and how much you want to spend. We have a variety of restaurants from typical food to high-end international plates.

Favorite Local Beverage: Horchata (made from a seed/morro) and season's fruit juices

What I Love About Honduras: I love everything about my country, the people, the passion, the hospitality, the natural beauty and the fact that we can still enjoy nature at its best. I live in Tegucigalpa, the Capital of Honduras, and I love that the city is located in a valley, surrounded by mountains and its urban twin, Comayagüela, which are geologically separated by the basin of the Choluteca River which flows between them. The historic center of the town is filled with details that remind Hondurans of the days of our ancestors.

Roatan was recently characterized as one of the most inviting islands in the world, with the second largest coral reef in the world and crystal clear, warm water that allows us to clearly see the wide variety of fish and marine fauna that live in the reefs. Roatan also provides an opportunity to meet the Garifuna people who settled on the island in the late 18th century, who gave our country and region the the traditional dance known as the "punta," based on traditional West African rhythms imported to a number of Caribbean countries in addition to Honduras, including Belize, Guatemala, and parts of Nicaragua.

Country Profile

How many years has Citi been in your country? In October 2015 we celebrated 50 years of Citi in Honduras. We bought the oldest bank in the country, Banco de Honduras, S.A., which is 126 years old and served as the Central Bank issuing currency prior the establishment of the Central Bank of Honduras.

What business units operate in your country? As of July 2014, we operate only our ICG businesses in Honduras having sold our consumer business to a local bank.

What are the opportunities and challenges of doing business in your country? Our many opportunities start with our clients! We are the only global bank operating in Honduras; we have been training our clients to move from business as usual to more sophisticated financial solutions to help them in their operations. As the first bank in Honduras to do a syndicated loan, a derivative transaction and a structured loan, we are a role model for market activities in the country.

We serve clients in the financial industry in addition to non-financial corporations and the government. Various Citi alumni have served in a variety of influential roles in the country, as Minister of Finance, Central Bank Governor, president of a number of local banks, president of the Banking Association, and CEOs of numerous local and multinational entities.

Postcard from Honduras

Personal/ Professional Background

Where were you born? I was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; my mother was from Nicaragua and my father from Honduras.

What did you study that helped you prepare for a career in banking and were there any subjects you realized subsequently would have helped you? I attended Southern Illinois University, where I received a Bachelor in Economics with a minor in Money and Banking. I continued my studies in Business Administration at the same university, and went on to receive my MBA in Finance. I started my career in banking in 1996 with Citi. When I began at the bank, I was eager to take all the courses available (keep in mind, this was before such courses were widely available online). I concentrated in learning more about our Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) and Corporate Finance businesses, but I'm not done learning yet. I'm currently studying for a Master of Psychology with an emphasis in Behavioral Analysis at Universidad Tecnologica Centroamericana (UNITEC). This will help me understand the behavior of new generations and how to maximize their potential within our organization; this also helps me to better understand and raise my own children who need my support just as my parents supported me in my own development.

What other roles and countries have you worked in at Citi? I started at Citi in 1996 as a banker at the ICG Business in San Pedro Sula. During my almost 20-year career with Citi, I've held a number of positions, including TTS Head – Cash and ICG Head, Public Sector Head, Financial Institutions Head, and Corporate Bank Head for Honduras and Nicaragua. Currently I am the CCO for Honduras and the CIB Head for Honduras and Nicaragua.

In my role as a banker, I worked with some of the most important and sophisticated clients in Central America and one of the most important in LATAM. I gained experience working cross-regional transactions, allowing me to partner closely with colleagues across the globe.

Did you choose any of those roles thinking they would prepare you for a role as CCO? On my very first day at Citi my goal was to become CCO of Honduras. I realized it would be difficult to move to another country due to family reasons, but I wanted to achieve the highest position within the country, the CCO position. Being CCO has been a "dream come true" as I believe it is one of the most exciting jobs in the company, as you get to see and manage just about everything even remotely related to the franchise in the country.

Roles and Responsibilities

How do you maintain work-life balance? What do you do in your free time? Besides CCO, I am also a mother and a wife. I try to be home before my kids go to bed, if something is still pending I will reply and execute during my "second shift," after my children are in bed.

I am very active in outside activities. My Saturdays are for family and community projects. One of my passions is to work with young women to help them identify their passion in life and execute their dreams, I meet with a group of six to seven young working women once a week.

As a cancer survivor, I volunteer as part of the Honduras Foundation against Breast Cancer to increase the awareness of the disease and the importance to have an early detection to increase the survival rate in Honduras. If breast cancer is found in stage I or II, the survival rate is around 95 percent, however in Honduras the survival rate is below 50 percent; as when the disease is found is already in stage III or IV. We will continue working hard to increase the survival rate in Honduras.

My favorite part of my life is enjoying the family I have been blessed with; we have a family lunch every Saturday where my kids can spend time with their cousins and the family can update each other on what happened during the week.

I have a very full agenda, but happy to have it this way, as if it was different it would mean that I am missing something extraordinary in life! After almost 20 years in Citi I still believe this is a great place to work where you can develop yourself professionally but also personally. It is a great place to build a legacy and to support not only your coworkers but also the community we serve.

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