Ralph Kravitz - A Student's Memoir

Ralph taught me to see possibilities and not constraints.

Above: Ralph Kravits

On 08 November 2020, Margaret and I attended the Zoom Shiva Service and Memorial of a former boss at Citi, Ralph Kravitz, who passed away on 05 November 2020. I was glad to note the virtual attendance of others of Ralph's Citi colleagues including, Mike Callen, Glen Moreno, Jack Berger and Bruno Wyler.

In mid 1975 I had been working at Citi's troubled (real estate market collapse) Sydney, Australia, 40% owned, finance company affiliate, Industrial Acceptance Corporation (IAC) for a year. I had spent that year implementing a credit policy structure for IAC under the tutelage of Bob Graham, who had moved from his corporate lending position at Citi in New York City, to Sydney.

In mid-1975, sensing IAC's imminent bankruptcy, Australian bank authorities agreed to allow Citi full ownership of IAC in return for a Citi infusion of additional capital and management expertise.

To make way for the flood of new Citi transfers to Sydney, most of the international staff seniors with whom I had worked that first year were reassigned. I stayed on to work with Citi's new management team.

Paul Austin became Citi Australia Country head. Glen Moreno was appointed IAC CEO. Glen at IAC was joined by a then who's who of Citi talent. Dick Jackson. Alan Scott. Wayne Stemmer. Sam Hayes. Jack Kopec. Bill Heron. And....as IAC senior operations officer, Ralph Kravitz.

In addition to senior operations assignments in New York, working for, among others, Bob White, Ralph had been senior operations officer for Citi London, working directly for Carleton Stewart, and most recently, had worked at a Citi leasing company affiliate in Toronto.

For the next two years 1975 to 1977, I reported to IAC Operating Group Head Ralph Kravitz as Field Operations Division Head. I hung on for dear life as "RK," in a frenzied, chaotic whirlwind of organizational change, opened for me a whole new perspective about what was possible to accomplish in transforming an inefficient, loosely controlled, back office into a back office having operational control and efficiency. The dimensions of Ralph's turn around challenge were significant. IAC had over one thousand employees, some fifty branches around Australia, and $ 1 billion in assets.

Start with people. Within six months of his arrival, Ralph had recruited to now Citicorp Australia at least a dozen Citibankers from all over the world who had worked for him before, including Tony DeRosa from New York...Babbis Stephanadakis from Athens, Tom McKeon from New York, and Jack Brennan, from London. Art Natvig, Citi's legendary FX back-office guru also joined Ralph in Sydney. Art was then retired and was working for Ralph contractually.

I was in awe when I met Art Natvig. Just four years previously, when I attended Mike Callen's Beirut Executive Training Center, all us trainees had to read and understand "Natvig's Notes on Foreign Exchange" before we could advance in the program. Art had a cot in his Citicorp Australia office. Art would often spend the entire night in his office tapping out arcane notes on Citicorp Australia's accounting system on his battered Smith Corona portable typewriter. Art once told me that the only person he would work for in his retirement period was Ralph Kravitz.

Ralph loved to tell stories.... his time in the Army... flunking his freshman year at Georgia Tech because he spent too much time chasing girls... experiences as a young engineer working for GE...stories about "Stu (Carlton Stewart)" in London, and Art Natvig's assessment of all of Ralph's reports... including me. Ralph once told me that Art had said I was a marshmallow. I probably was. But, also, Ralph liked to mess with my head.

Once, when I was sitting in RK's office during a late-night story telling session, a call came in. "Oh, hi, Walt," says Ralph. So...it turns out that the bank had some operational crisis somewhere and Walt Wriston, Citi CEO in New York, wanted to borrow Art Natvig. I'm thinking, "Wow, this guy Kravitz is really somebody in the bank! The best Citi operational operatives from around the world drop everything to come work for him and Walt Wriston, himself, calls Ralph directly for favors!"

By setting expectations for my performance that seemed to me to be far beyond my capabilities, I had initially thought, "well here's how Ralph is going to get rid of me." But I also saw that Ralph had cleared a path for me to succeed. When I did achieve at Ralph's expectation levels, not only was my own sense of self confidence buttressed, but I was recipient of compensation boosts and bonuses far higher than I thought possible.

RK built an organization on a scale and with speed such as I could never imagined. Among the many MBA type locals he hired was Michael Maher, a Harvard Business School Baker Scholar who graduated the same year that I attended HBS, 1971. Ralph sent Michael (not Mike, Michael) to me to be my chief of staff. Another self confidence booster! Mwah (sic) was hardly a Baker Scholar! Michael Maher went on to run one if Australia's top Insurance companies.

Ralph re-engineered Citicorp Australia's systems: he created a strong management team. Ralph brought Citicorp Australia's audit rating to acceptable levels. When Citi seniors realized they had a real problem on their hands with Citicorp Australia operations control, they sent their best, Ralph Kravitz, to fix it.... and he did. I was privileged to be a participant in and a witness to that accomplishment. What I learned in those two years working directly for Ralph informed whatever I achieved during the rest of my management career.

Post Citicorp Australia, after turning down an offer from Carlton Stewart to leave Citi and become chief operations officer at Riggs Bank in Washington D.C., RK took a Citi Division Level operations job in Europe, followed by a division job in Citi's Investment Bank, in New York. Ralph left Citi circa 1986 to assume a bank CEO job in Poland.

We stayed in touch. RK did some consulting work for me in 1991 when I was CEO of American Savings of Florida, in Miami. Ralph and Malka made a few ski trips and summer trips west, frequently to include Park City, UT (Margaret's and my home since 1998). RK and I were regular participants on political email forum which included a few other Citi alums. Ralph became a serious Long Island Sound sailor and a doting grandfather in his retirement, while living in Cos Cob, Connecticut.

Five, or so, individuals intervened to cause a major vector change in my life. Ralph was one of those people. Ralph taught me to see possibilities and not constraints.

Steve Taylor

Park City, UT

10 November 2020