Pune-born Victor J Menezes, one of the earliest India-origin CEOs to lead multinationals, passed away in Miami, Florida, in the United States, at the age of 77. Menezes is survived by his wife Tara Anne Fonseca, a former Indian model and beauty pageant titleholder who won the Miss Asia-Pacific 1973 contest, and his four children. His younger brother, the late Sir Ivan Menezes, used to be the CEO of Diageo.

Biocon Ltd founder and executive chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw tweeted the death of Menezes on her X account, calling him “a wonderful and wise colleague at MIT Corporation who will be missed for his intellect”.

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Victor Menezes was an alumnus of IIT-Bombay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He had a 32-year-long association with Citibank and retired as the global banking major’s Senior Vice Chairman in January 2005.

Victor Menezes was born to Indian Railway Board Chairman Manuel Menezes and Nina Menezes on May 19, 1949. It was at his father’s insistence that Victor decided to go to IIT-Bombay in Powai. It proved to be the best decision of his life. Victor was a good student at IIT, but not outstanding.

Victor, who got good grades and knew his subjects well, was better known for his skills as an orator. The debating society at IIT Bombay helped Victor hone his
communication skills. The soft-spoken, shy Victor emerged as an unlikely champion in the fierce verbal duels which characterised the debates at IIT Bombay (Powai).

“Victor won most of the time. He knew how to keep his head at the debates and attack his opponents’ arguments. Everyone wanted him on their team because he could win,” recalled one of his seniors at IIT Bombay.

After doing electrical engineering from IIT Bombay in 1970, Menezes acquired his MBA in finance and economics from Sloan School of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), majoring in finance. It was the desire “to do something broader” that prompted the switch. “I wanted to have more options. I did not want to join a technical firm and work there for the rest of my life,” Victor Menezes once said.

After MIT, Menezes interviewed with many financial firms on Wall Street, but he chose Citibank because it offered him a chance to come back home to Mumbai.

He wanted to spend time with his family, something he could not do during school and college. In 1972, Menezes joined Citibank’s corporate banking division as a management associate in Mumbai (then Bombay), on a monthly salary of Rs 2,000.

With his first salary, Menezes took his folks out to dinner. He worked with Citibank ever since for 32 years. Five years later, in 1977, when he took over as Citibank’s CEO for India, he was only 28.

In 1982, Menezes left India to go to New York. From then on, he moved countries, each time adding another conquest to his career. In 1983, he was in Hong Kong and China, as head of Citibank’s largest Asian operation. In Latin America, he played a key role in grafting a US $3-billion write-off during the 1987 debt crisis.

Citibank insiders saw him as a protege of the legendary former Citigroup Co-chairman John S Reed. After catching Reed’s eye, Menezes was named Citibank’s senior corporate officer for Africa and Latin America in 1985.

In Europe, he integrated Citibank’s mergers and acquisitions. In 1989, he took over the European consumer business and two years later was given charge of consumer banking in the US as well. In 1995, he was named CFO following the forced resignation of Citibank Vice Chairman Christopher Steffen, and worked on the famous merger which created Citigroup.

Once again, it was his mentor John S Reed who gave Menezes his toughest assignment in 1998, when he was made the co-head of the global-investment and corporate bank, with Michael A Carpenter, at the newly formed Citigroup Inc. The surprise organisational restructuring led to the exit of Citigroup president and one-time heir apparent James Dimon.

His Citibank colleagues once said that the secret of his success was in his zeal for work, uncanny knack for keeping a low profile and wide experience across a very complicated organisational set up. They called him “balanced, smart and quiet”.

“He is ambitious but not ruthless. Frankly, he is a politician who can please everybody without compromising his position. He can appreciate others’ point of view,” a senior banker who knew him once said.

In fact, this is one quality which differentiated Menezes from other global Indian bankers like Rana Talwar, the former group chief executive of British bank Standard Chartered Plc. Talwar was ousted after a boardroom battle.

In March 2000, when he succeeded his mentor John S Reed as chairman and chief executive of Citibank’s North American unit, everybody expected him to bag the top job one day, but that was not to be.

Menezes was once seen as a possible successor to Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill. However, when Menezes decided to hang up his boots by the end of January 2005, it took everybody in the financial world by surprise. He was at the peak of his career.

However, by every yardstick, Menezes had an incredible run at Citibank. His mentor John S Reed was one of the most influential people in his life and others who influenced him are his father Manuel Menezes who inspired him to join IIT Bombay, his mother Nina and his wife Tara Anne Fonseca.

Victor Menezes was married to Tara Ann Fonseca, a former Miss India from Bangalore and the second Indian to be crowned Miss Asia-Pacific in 1973. Tara Ann Fonseca gave up the limelight after she became Mrs Victor Menezes. She gave Victor Menezes a very stable family life and provided him with a lot of strength, helping him keep his sense of balance, according to his daughter Pia Menezes.

“I think my father is an incredibly intelligent and gifted person, but what I will always admire is his humility and keen sense of humour. Despite his high pressure job, he always knew how to leave the office behind and have a good time with the family,” Pia Menezes once said.

After his retirement, Menezes remained as head of a new Asian advisory board to help Citibank expand its business in Asia. “Victor has played a central role in Citigroup’s success and to celebrate his career is to celebrate an important part of this company’s history,” according to an internal Citibank memo which was issued when he retired.

Menezes’ favourite newspaper cartoon comic strip was ‘Wizard Of Id’ and unlike other bankers, he never played golf, but enjoyed playing tennis.

After Menezes retired from Citibank in January 2005 as Senior Vice Chairman of Citigroup Inc, with a 32-year global career span under his belt, he became a Senior Advisor to New Silk Route Partners, a private equity firm founded by Rajat Gupta of McKinsey and Parag Saxena, which was his last known job.