A Brash and Brainy "Brat"

By Gordon Bock

Something has always separated Citicorp Chairman John Shepard Reed from the crowd. While many of his high-powered banking colleagues must lumber along in English on their travels abroad, he can close a deal in fluent Spanish or Portuguese. A political independent in a Republican-dominated business, he once criticized U.S. policy on Viet Nam during a White House meeting in front of his banking boss and a Cabinet officer. During the Reagan years, according to another account, Reed has driven up to the same prestigious Pennsylvania Avenue address in a humble white Toyota compact. Now the whiz kid once dubbed "the Brat" is steering Citicorp on a radically different course from the one established by his expansion-minded predecessor, Walter Wriston.

The Chicago-born son of an Armour meat-packing executive whose business travels took his family throughout South America, Reed has spent 22 years with Citicorp. But in many ways he remains an enigma, variously described by some of his fellow workers as icy and grim and by others as sensitive and humorous. One acquaintance says he has a "passion for detail and no time for mavericks" and that he maintains a studied aloofness with underlings. Associates consider Reed to be direct and serious, possibly to a fault. Says Investment Banker William Donaldson, a fellow outside director of Philip Morris: "He likes to face reality, no matter how harsh it might be."

In fact, Reed has thrived on challenges. He took two undergraduate degrees in a rigorous five-year program that had him enrolled in engineering courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in liberal-arts studies at Washington & Jefferson College near Pittsburgh. Reed served in Korea as an Army Corps of Engineers officer, then briefly joined Goodyear Tire & Rubber as a trainee. In 1965 he earned a business degree from M. I. T. 's Sloan School of Management, signing on after graduation with Citicorp's predecessor, First National City Bank. Within five years, Reed found himself head of the bank's notoriously disorganized back-office operations, which were plagued by backlogs of check-processing paperwork. Reed cleared up the mess by starting work before dawn, thereby making a good start at earning his "brat" moniker. Some fellow workers felt he was abrasive in whipping the unit into shape.

But the success won Reed the daunting task of expanding the bank's consumer business, a major goal of former Chairman Wriston, who became a mentor. Reed triumphed again: he opened hundreds of new branches, bought the Carte Blanche and Diners Club credit-card companies, and launched Citicorp even more heavily into the consumer credit-card business by signing up 2 million new members for Citibank Visa cards. Expansion initially created staggering bank losses of more than $200 million in three years. But Reed eventually turned the consumer operations into a major moneymaker -- and helped position himself as a prime contender for Wriston's job. When he was finally tapped for succession in 1984, Reed talked his two chief rivals, Hans Angermueller and Thomas Theobald, into staying aboard as key advisers.

Reed rarely grants press interviews, and when he does he often stipulates that he cannot be quoted directly. Indeed, he seldom ventures into public speechifying of any kind. When it comes to his personal life, the chairman is even more jealous of his privacy. Married in 1964 to the former Sally Foreman, he is the father of four children ages twelve to 22. In his off-hours Reed peruses scientific journals or lazes around the pool behind the family's two- story stucco house in Greenwich, Conn. For recreation he plays a seven- handicap golf game, and in the winter he often travels with his family to ski in Stratton, Vt. For the surefooted Reed an occasional fall in the snow is about the only slip he ever makes.

With reporting by Raji Samghabadi/New York