Risk Chief for Wamu
Ronald J. Cathcart, the head of retail risk management at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, is jumping to Washington Mutual Inc. to be its chief enterprise risk officer.
He will make the move from Toronto to Seattle on Dec. 1.
Mr. Cathcart, 53, is well known in the risk management community. He is a member of the Risk Management Association's consumer risk management committee and the executive advisory council of the RBC Centre for Risk Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
At Wamu, he will oversee the credit, market, and operational risk functions. He will report to Kerry Killinger, the chairman and chief executive officer, and will succeed James Vanasek, 61, who will retire at yearend. Mr. Vanasek has spent almost two years in the position. He joined Wamu in 1999 as the chief credit risk officer.
Mr. Cathcart has worked at CIBC since 2002. He was an executive vice president and the head of retail risk management and oversaw its $120 billion consumer-lending portfolio. From 1999 to 2002 he was the executive vice president of risk management for retail operations at Bank One Corp.
A Royal Hand
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall kicked off their U.S. tour Tuesday by dedicating a memorial garden in downtown Manhattan for British expatriates killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
More than half of the British victims worked in the financial services sector, and the garden is being built in the financial district's Hanover Square.
"The British Anglo-Saxon American community is giving New York a garden, which will honor the 67 British victims of the attacks, but also celebrate the historical relationship linking the two countries," Camilla Hellman, the president of British Memorial Garden Trust Inc.
"It was wonderful that at this point that the Prince of Wales was able to come and visit us and dedicate the park by unveiling a center stone which will forever memorialize his visit to us."
Ms. Hellman said the organization is more than halfway to its goal of raising $6.75 million, and it plans to hold several fund-raising events, including one in February where the honorees will include Barclays PLC chairman Matthew Barrett. Construction of the garden is expected to be completed next summer.
New Citi Exec
Citigroup Inc. has hired Shengman Zhang, 48, to chair its public-sector group.
He will succeed Stanley Fischer, who left last summer to be a governor at the Bank of Israel.
Mr. Zhang, a Chinese national, will start his new job in January with the title vice chairman of global banking in Citi's corporate and investment bank. He will be based in New York and will report to Michael Klein, Citi's chief executive of global banking.
Mr. Zhang will meet with clients of the public-sector group, which includes governments and multinational corporations, and assist Citigroup with its emerging-market growth strategies and risk analysis.
Dimon Honored
The Boys' Club of New York honored James Dimon on Wednesday night by presenting him with its 2005 Harriman Award.
Named after Edward H. Harriman, the Wall Street and railroad tycoon who founded the group, the award was presented at the All Sports Hall of Fame 30th anniversary dinner, a black-tie event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where sporting legends such as the Chicago Bears great Gale Sayers and the Cleveland Browns star Jim Brown were inducted.
It was a night chock full of speeches, and the JPMorgan Chase & Co. president and chief operating officer kept his acceptance under two minutes; he mainly praised the group and the work his wife, Judy, has done with it.
The Harriman award dates back to 1976; BlackRock Inc. chairman and CEO Laurence D. Fink won last year.
