Interview with Clemencia de Tobon (MBA '76)
Leading with Passion

As a woman in the male-dominated world of banking, Clemencia de Tobón (MBA ‘76) has always had to prove herself. Now, as president, CEO and board member of Eastern National Bank in Miami, she talks to IESE Alumni Magazine about her journey to the top and the challenges of running a bank in a restrictive environment, while staying true to her free-spirited nature.

In December 1999, on the eve of a new millennium, Clemencia de Tobon had her work cut out for her. After a successful 23-year career with Banco de Bogotá, which took her from her native Colombia to New York and Miami, followed by several years running Eagle National Bank and then working as a management consultant, she was appointed president, CEO and board member of Eastern National Bank in Miami.

The bank is one of many foreign-owned banks based in South Florida, but the foreign owners in this case are Venezuelan. In the 1990s, Venezuelan banks were living under the shadow of financial scandals, triggered by cases of fraud, corruption and mismanagement of funds, which cost the Venezuelan government billions of dollars as it stepped in to bail out, close down or take control of numerous banks and financial conglomerates. One of those affected was a financial group that included Eastern National as one of its assets.

Given that backdrop, you would think that Tobon would have been deterred. But as with the rest of her life, she has always liked to boldly go where no man has gone before. And it’s not for nothing that her first name is the feminine diminutive of Clement, the patron saint of lighthouses: over the past six years, with her at the helm, she has safely steered Eastern National out of treacherous waters and got the bank back on an even keel. “After the Venezuelan government took control of Eastern National, I was appointed president. My first goal when I came on board was to get the bank out from under the enforcement action imposed on it by the regulators after the government took control,” says Tobon, speaking from the U.S.A. where she has lived since 1980 and is now a citizen. “That was my first three-year strategic plan. Within nine months, I had succeeded in lifting the enforcement action."

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