Former CEO and Chairman of Bank of New York Mellon kicks off Rutgers "CEO Lecture Series"

Dec. 18, 2009 - PRLog -- One of the most successful alumni in Rutgers Business School’s history, Thomas, A. Renyi (RBS MBA ’68), CEO and Chairman, The Bank of New York Mellon (1997-2008), spoke to a packed auditorium about his experiences running America’s oldest bank during chaotic times. Located two blocks from the World Trade Center, Renyi led the bank through the turmoil caused by 9/11. He also managed the bank – founded by Alexander Hamilton – through two major organizational changes, the mergers with Pershing LLC in 2003 and Mellon Corporation in 2007.

“In times of stress, what you thought was obvious doesn’t seem so obvious in hard times,” said Renyi in his 30-minute presentation. “You have to remember what the principle core of your business is and stick to it.”

Renyi’s December 3rd lecture was the inaugural presentation of the “CEO Lecture Series” organized by Dean Michael R. Cooper, PhD, and the Rutgers Business School Board of Advisers. The next one is planned for the spring with PSEG Chairman and CEO Ralph Izzo (RBS MBA ’02) scheduled to speak. “There is no better time to launch this CEO Series than now,” said Dean Cooper, PhD.

MBA student Yitzhak Zahavy (RBS '10) thought that Renyi’s points were topical for business students. “He made some very interesting points about how a company’s culture is affected by mergers and gave us insightful ways to deal with them on an organization level,” said Zahavy.“This CEO Lecture Series is a great value-add for RBS.”

Rutgers Business School focuses on delivering the business, science, and technology credentials that global employers demand. With distinguished alumni like Thomas A. Renyi, Rutgers Business School maintains its standing as a premier business school with a deep commitment to solving today’s economic and business challenges.

Renyi in his own words:

Overview of Lecture “Managing a Financial Services Company in Chaotic Times”

“My main points are about management and organizational behavior in times of stress – and my thoughts on how you need to manage your company in difficult environments like what we are going through in the world today.

Essentially, the same management principles that brought success during good times need to be applied even more intensely in times of stress and chaos. What does change are the priorities you need to focus on. When you have intense stress on your institution, you need to rearrange the business’s priorities and strictly adhere to those priorities despite the incredible amount of distractions going on around you. You need to be extremely purposeful in setting forth your strategies, priorities, and frankly your schedule on what needs to be focused on.”

View of current economic situation

“The economy has clearly come back from the bottom and there is a level of positive growth that we can see. But I believe that it will be a slow recovery. We will not have a “V-shaped” turnaround. I think we will be quite deliberate in our growth. I use the word “deliberate” because that is what I think the American businessperson is today – deliberate. Going through an enormous amount of shock, a horrible amount of pain over the last 18 months, I think most management teams have said, “we’ve gone through this pain, now let’s see if we can make it pay.” That’s going to be reflected in the unemployment rate meaning we are not going to see a quick bounce back in employment. It’s going to be a long, slow recovery back to a full employment level.

As it relates to the financial sector there will still be stresses and strains. It will be a rocky time. There will be some good days and not so good days. Commercial real estate still has some issues to go through. Real estate generally, and residential real estate is coming back, but it’s going to come back slowly. And I don’t feel bad about that. I think if you look historically when we had 2-3% GDP growth, a lot of us would feel pretty good about that. I think we need to step back and appreciate what we do have.”

In response to the economic crisis, the role business education should play

“Business education has an opportunity that it hasn’t had historically. The principle topic on everybody’s mind in this country no matter where you are, Wall Street or Main Street, is what’s happening with the economy, what’s happening with the financial sector, what’s happening at my bank. It’s top of mind.

You see that in discussions today where Washington is really trying to raise the profile of health care reform – and as essential as that is for the long-term health of our economy – people really don’t want to focus on it. They want to focus on how the economy is doing overall, how healthy is the financial system. I think one of the things that has come to fore over the past 18 months is how critical the banking system is to the health of any economy, especially our own. And with that I think business education has a great opportunity to be a forum for debate on all these issues.”

Rutgers Business School’s involvement in solving today’s issues

“Rutgers Business School has a unique role because of its location here in the greater New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. The Business School is clearly internationally oriented. It also has a clear focus on one of its major constituents, the banking industry and financial sector. So Rutgers Business School has positioned itself to be a real forum for debate. We know that these economic and financial issues are top of mind. We need to get away from focusing on the mysterious aspects of Wall Street and Main Street and that confluence. Let’s really get down to how the economy really works, how it should work, and how to make it work properly. Rutgers Business School is doing just that.”

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