Most people who meet Alexandra McLeod, Bank of America's new European head of corporate banking, have trouble placing her accent. Americans think she's British; the English assume she's from North America. In fact hers is the perfect transatlantic background for the bank's senior officer in Europe.
She was born 43 years ago in Canada and came to the UK at the age of 13. She studied law in England - taking a year out in Switzerland - and spent the early years of her career working for Continental Bank in London, Paris and Chicago (she was one of the bank's first graduate trainees in 1978). The spell in France nurtured a continuing love affair with that country. She has a house in Provence and speaks fluent French. "I feel equally comfortable in the UK, the US and France," she says.
McLeod's appointment makes her one of the most powerful female bankers in Europe. She is also the most senior woman in Bank of America's global corporate investment bank, the wholesale arm of the institution formed through the merger of BankAmerica and NationsBank last year. That merger has been widely viewed as a takeover by NationsBank, a retail-oriented bank based in North Carolina. But NationsBank had little presence outside the US. In London, the centre for the new bank's operations in a region stretching from western Europe to Africa and as far east as Pakistan, Bank of America has contributed most of the staff and infrastructure.
McLeod believes that Continental provided a valuable, if traumatic, learning experience. In 1984 it failed and had to be supported by the federal authorities. "But it was an exciting time," she recalls. "It fostered a kind of Dunkirk spirit. Suddenly you had to think: are we going to be able to fund this loan? We couldn't use the balance sheet and that provided the catalyst for learning to do new kinds of business."
McLeod was propelled into the business for which she is best known: trading emerging-market debt. Unable to provide loans off its own balance sheet, Continental moved into corporate finance. "We started arranging debt-equity swaps," she says. "And from that we started sourcing the debt. It was only then that I moved into trading."
London became the centre for a tight-knit team, led by McLeod, specializing in trading distressed debt. At first the business centred on sovereign loans to emerging markets - then called LDCs. McLeod then moved on to European corporate debt. "She had started the LDC loan business from scratch," says a colleague from that time. "Then she saw an opportunity to do the same with distressed corporate loans in the early 1990s. That's typical of her entrepreneurial approach and her ability to identify a new market."
Continental was bought by BankAmerica in 1994. "I think that what attracted BankAmerica to Continental was that there were a lot of good people and a real team spirit," says McLeod. Those people did well in BankAmerica and have continued to prosper in the new set-up. McLeod's ultimate boss, global head of corporate banking Mike Murray, is another old Continental hand.
The BankAmerica takeover of Continental and its subsequent merger with NationsBank mean that McLeod has now worked at three different institutions without changing employer. "She is a very loyal person," says a fellow banker from Continental. "She is also very committed to her staff and that means she can command a lot of loyalty from them."
She may need all the loyalty she can get as she seeks to build a coherent business out of the various areas of strength inherited from NationsBank and BankAmerica. The core business of the 2,750 staff employed in the Europe/Middle East/Africa region is providing services, such as loans and cash management, to US multinationals in Europe. At the moment most domestic clients are governments and banks rather than corporates. But the firm is trying to increase its corporate business by building a high-yield operation.
For the most part, however, McLeod will be focusing on building on Bank of America's traditional strengths, internationally and in the US, rather than branching out into new areas. "Worldwide we are number one in syndicated loans and we are also a big player in project finance," she points out. Those areas account for the small amount of business the bank does in Africa and the Middle East.
She is also keen to infect the European operation with her entrepreneurial flair. "Moving from Continental Bank to BankAmerica involved a big culture change," she says. "At BankAmerica you had more resources available but it could also be more bureaucratic. Under David Coulter [chairman and CEO of BankAmerica] there was greater effort to foster an entrepreneurial culture."
The source of McLeod's recent success is undoubtedly her diplomatic skills. In fact, after university she was tempted to join the UK Foreign Office. She is now sure she chose the right career: "In banking you have the perfect combination of skills. There is the technical side and the more human aspects of the management side. And it's very international." Michael Peterson