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Postcard from Costa Rica

November 15, 2016
Ed Sanchez, Citi Country Officer, Costa Rica

Around the world, Citi Country Officers (CCOs) work to balance the execution of their country business strategy with their responsibilities ensuring 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 Costa Rica

Official language: Spanish

Currency: Colon

Population: 4.8 million

Capital: San Jose

Weather: Tropical

Best Places to Dine: Hotel Grano de Oro- Di Bartolo- L'il de France

Favorite Local Beverage: Agua dulce, pipa y Cerveza Imperial

Best Tourist Sites: Arenal Volcano- Guanacaste beaches- specially Flamingo, Tropical Rainforest

What I Love About Costa Rica: ¨Pura Vida¨, its people and culture.

Country Profile

How many years has Citi been in your country? 48 years.

What business units operate in your country?

ICG and aShared Service Center that provides services to several Citi entities in LATAM and NAM.

What are the opportunities and challenges of doing business in your country?

Citi selected Costa Rica as an ideal location for several shared service centers due to the proximity of a number of our multinational clients. There are also many qualified professionals in the country, which also benefits from a solid and stable democracy. As for challenges, the cost of living is higher in Costa Rica than in the rest of the region, which inevitably raises the cost of doing business in Costa Rica compared to some of our neighbors.

Personal/ Professional Background

Where were you born?
I'm a North American, born in Santa Fe, the state capital of New Mexico. The city sits high in the Rocky Mountain range about 9000 ft above sea level and is known around the world for its artistic culture. There are more art galleries per square foot than any other city in the USA.

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?

Growing up in the Southwest, I attended college at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in part because I won an athletic scholarship to play baseball at NAU. But at some point, much as I enjoyed my position as catcher, I realized that being a successful baseball player was a boyhood dream and that it made more sense to change direction and become a business major. During that transition I became interested in student politics and was elected Student Body President, a position that enabled me to start setting strategic objectives for myself. I learned about project management, and how to deal with NAU's diverse student body. Having graduating with a BS in Business Administration, majoring in Accounting and minoring in Public Speaking, I can't emphasize enough how important accounting is in the business world and especially in banking. Knowing how to read and really understand a balance sheet is a must. Upon graduation from NAU, I launched my professional career as a Systems Consultant.

Over five years in consulting, I had the opportunity to work on a number of different consulting projects in Chicago, Dallas, NYC, Mexico, and Nigeria, at which point I decided to return to school for a graduate degree. I obtained a Master's degree in Public Administration at Harvard, where I focused on international business. My goal was to leverage the international experience I had gained during my consulting career to work for a global financial institution with a strong presence in Latin America. And of course, that's what led me to Citi.

What other roles and countries have you worked in at Citi?

I started with Citi in New York 31 years ago as a Management Associate, knowing that my previous consulting experience included fairly extensive management experience. I participated in the 6- month credit risk training program and was placed into the Derivatives Group in New York for another 6 months before being sent overseas to Latin America.

My first overseas assignment was in the Markets business in Brazil. Before arriving in Sao Paulo, I had to learn Portuguese so I attended a one month highly intensive language program. I fell in love with the language, people and culture. I even married an 18-year Brazilian Citibanker. At this time, Brazil had hyper-inflation, huge devaluations, and had impeached its first democratically elected President. Those were very exciting and volatile times! My Brazil experience gave me the foundation to become an Emerging Markets Banker. After two years in Markets, I moved into Corporate Finance just at the point when Brazil was poised to open its economy up to international bond financing.

After 5 years in Brazil, I decided to accept an opportunity to head-up Corporate Finance in Venezuela during a boom in Venezuela. After working in structured Finance, M&A, and International Bond financings, all of which took off during the boom, i in 1998 I was asked to manage both Venezuela and Colombia from Bogota. The family relocated to Bogota and I started to manage my first little region during a very difficult period for Colombia in the late 1990's. Fortunately, I have only fond memories of my clients and the people of Columbia and Venezuela. It was during those years that I learned to speak Spanish.

In 2000, I transferred from Colombia to Miami to run the Corporate Finance business for the Andean Region, a role that demanded that I develop structured finance opportunities from Colombia to Peru. Then in 2003, I shifted again from Corporate Finance with responsibility for the entire Andean region to Corporate and Investment Banking handling the Caribbean and Central America (CCA) region. For 7 years, I was the Corporate and Investment Bank Head for CCA. And it was in that position that I really absorbed the uniqueness of the Caribbean and the diversity of Central America. That experience helped me to build my business acumen on how to do deals across diverse geographies. As momentum for the BRIC countries accelerated, I decided to return to Brazil after an absence of 20 years and eventually accepted a position as head of the Corporate Bank in Brazil.

Did you choose any of those roles thinking they would prepare you for a role as CCO?

After almost 30 years in Citi, armed with my different experiences, I decided that my skill set in general management qualified me for the role of CCO. With the help and support of senior leaders I gained my first CCO assignment as CCO of Costa Rica. I truly consider the CCO role to be the best leadership job at the bank, because it requires us to develop a unique set of leadership talents and skills ranging from risk and control to managing complex relationships with regulators and clients, talent management and Franchise Governance. I continue to be challenged and engaged by the role every day, for which I am grateful.

Role and Responsibilities

How do you maintain work-life balance? What do you do in your free time?

I wake up at 5am and do Circuit Training for one hour in the morning 5 days a week. After working out, as I am winding down, I take 30 minutes to read. I dedicate this reading time to non-business books. On weekends, I like to sleep in late, drink lots of coffee, and Instagram. I continue to study and follow Neuro-Linguistics Programming (NLP) courses and topics. NLP helps my personal self-discovery and professional positive and team management style.

How does your role help you make progress?

Every day is a new day, filled with new and exciting challenges. As a "walk around" CCO, I'm able to feel the pulse of our employees so that I can gain an understanding of how best I can help and support them to succeed.

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