Hi Everyone,
As a follow up to our February 10th meeting, we would like to thank Kurt Brungardt, and MSD Capital for once again hosting our East Coast CIO Forum event. We so appreciate you hospitality. Special thanks to our guest speaker, Gene Ludwig, CEO Promontory Financial Group, for flying in from Washington to join us Tuesday evening, and leaving us with an evening we shall not forget! Thank you also Christine Bratter of Promontory Financial for all the help behind the scenes!
As the business and technology executives took their seats, Gene asked the crowd if they wouldn’t rather focus the discussion on the current economy. With a unanimous yes, Gene quickly gave us his view on the past, current, and future state of the economy.
Some thoughts from the meeting include the following:
- The current US model of consumer-based growth cannot last. Consumers are tapped out with negative balance sheets.
- They cannot spend forever.
- We need to get the toxic financial assets ($1-3 trillion) out of the banking system.
- The Stimulus package is the appropriate and necessary solution to turn things around.
- We are in an international crisis that won’t hit bottom for a few more quarters.
- We cannot let the auto industry fail.
- There was considerable discussion about whether or not automakers should be left to fail (“pure capitalism” and “moral hazard”).
- Bankruptcy would undermine confidence and affect sales so much, it would devastate the industry.
- Layoffs on that scale would be devastating, as they would affect not only the auto industry, but the suppliers, and various other businesses.
- Once we bottom out, (potentially yearend), the economy will start working its way back to solid footing.
- Expect a higher degree of regulatory oversight.
- All financial service firms in like businesses should be regulated equally, including hedge funds.
- We should be “bailing out the future, not the past!”
- Energy technologies are the future.
- We need to build and strengthen a world class technology sector to manage risk and to promote the visibility of risk.
- Technology is critical to the entire financial sector.
- Members of the CIO Forum clearly posses the talent needed to help solve these problems.
- A company’s survival and success will depend heavily on its ability to focus on improving its risk management & compliance techniques and systems.
Thanks again to everyone for joining us at the meeting Tuesday night. Your insights, thoughts, and discussions, have once again made this a smashing event! Thanks again to Gene Ludwig for his closing “story”, which clearly made this evening very unique!
Thank you.
-malka
Malka Treuhaft
Executive Director East Coast CIO Forum &
President
Truision Inc.
646.942.2625 (office)
917.589.1069 (mobile)
718.375.1529 (fax)
www.truision.com
Eugene A. Ludwig BIO
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Ludwig is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Promontory Financial Group, LLC, the leading consulting firm for financial companies worldwide. Mr. Ludwig is also Chairman and CEO of Promontory Interfinancial Network, LLC, among other related companies.
Prior to founding Promontory, Mr. Ludwig was Vice Chairman and Senior Control Officer of Bankers Trust/Deutsche Bank. He joined Bankers Trust in 1998, and was a member of the firm’s Management Committee, Chairman of the Control Committee and Co-Chairman of the Capital Commitment Committee. Earlier, Mr. Ludwig served for five years as Comptroller of the Currency of the United States. As Comptroller, Mr. Ludwig headed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal agency responsible for supervising the preponderance of bank assets in the United States. During his tenure as Comptroller, Mr. Ludwig also was Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council revitalizing the work of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. He served as Chairman of the interagency Federal Consumer Electronic Payments Task Force, a Director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and Chairman of the Neighborhood Housing Services.
Mr. Ludwig led the OCC during a period of substantial change – both within the financial marketplace as well as in the supervisory and examination practices of the agency. He is credited with improving the safety and soundness supervision of the banking industry and developing a “supervision by risk” approach to bank supervision that has been adopted by leading regulators worldwide. At the same time, Mr. Ludwig spearheaded efforts to reform the Community Reinvestment Act and vigorously enforce the fair lending laws that resulted in a fourfold increase in financing for America’s low- and moderate-income communities. Prior to being Comptroller, Mr. Ludwig was a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, specializing in banking law. He has written numerous articles on banking and finance for scholarly journals and publications and has been a guest lecturer at Yale and Harvard law schools and Georgetown University’s International Law Institute.
A native of York, Pennsylvania, he graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College and received a scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Masters of Arts degree as a Keasbey Fellow. He holds a LLB from Yale University where he was editor of the Yale Law Journal and chairman of Yale Legislative Services.
