(Image: ThinkStock)

Over the past few weeks, many of us will attend the annual round of fall confabs and college homecomings. As we reminisce and, in some cases, salute our good fortune, let’s use these opportunities to reinforce networks and bolster our collective clout.

Of course, tackling macro challenges like an African American unemployment rate of more than 17% and a weakened small business sector may require government intervention to some degree. We can make an impact, however, if we bring together corporate executives, innovative entrepreneurs, seasoned policy makers and other members of alumni groups who can spend a bit of quality time brainstorming solutions and collaborating on promising ventures.

One such potential model was found at the recent Harvard Law School Celebration of Black Achievement. With some encouragement from Raymond McGuire, head of global banking for financial leviathan Citigroup, I attended the event that brought out 700 of the best and brightest. I’m glad I went to Cambridge.

Clearly, Harvard Law has produced some of the world’s most accomplished and powerful. Check out a few of its alums: the late legendary financier Reginald Lewis who built the first Black billion-dollar company to soar to the top of the BE 100s (the institution’s international law center bears his name); corporate icon Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and CEO of American Express; First Lady Michelle Obama and Leader of the Free World, President Barack Obama. Held roughly every half decade, this year’s attendees included such notables as power litigator Ted Wells, Democratic Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell, Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, as well as this year’s keynote speakers, Kenneth Frazier, CEO of pharmaceutical powerhouse Merck, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. In fact, one of the event organizers was none other than renowned Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree, also an alumnus.

Much more than a gathering of the Black legal, political and business elite, the reunion also served as a support network and incubator for new ideas. Ogletree eloquently stated at the outset that CBA was designed to honor the tradition of “Houston, Marshall and Hamilton”—paying homage to Charles Hamilton Houston, the first Black editor of the Harvard Law Review and Howard University Law School dean who waged a lifelong battle to defeat the “separate but equal” doctrine; Thurgood Marshall, a Houston protégé who won 29 civil rights cases before the Supreme Court and later became the first African American to serve on that August body; and William T. Coleman, the first Black lawyer to join an all-White firm and NAACP Legal Defense Fund president who also battled Jim Crow laws who would eventually rise to become the second Black to hold a presidential cabinet post as Secretary of Transportation during the Ford Administration.

Ogletree further stressed the gathering was also designed to help guide young attorneys making their legal ascent, those in mid-career transition and others who sought to make direct societal change through politics, education and the non-profit sector. To achieve that end, conference sessions included how attendees could gain the competitive edge as legal professionals, launch entrepreneurial ventures, run for public office, create a track to judicial appointments and develop “social impact” ventures. In other words, a series of short courses on making professional, political and personal power moves. But the end game was to use such knowledge and talents to fight for justice and the empowerment and advancement of other African Americans.

The other message: Alumni should support one another in professional, political and philanthropic pursuits. For example, Rep. Sewell, a 1992 graduate, recounted her “uphill battle” to gain election to the Alabama congressional delegation but was able to achieve that milestone, in part, through financial contributions and other support from former classmates. McGuire, a 1983 grad who says “he stands on the shoulders” of legal and business pioneers, uses his power position to mentor young African Americans as a means of feeding the high finance and business pipelines. And 2007 graduate Alexandra Lee, an associate with a top-ranked New York law firm, shared her goal of launching a boarding school in Ghana for at-risk youth.

The Harvard experience should provide reinforcement for Black alumni groups to use their unique set  of resources to attack problems and create opportunities.  Our reunions can serve as more than just celebrations, they can be catalysts for change.

That’s the point Kenneth Frazier made when he shared with the attendees an experience before his rise to the pinnacle at Merck. Roughly two decades ago as a partner at a Philadelphia law firm he and two colleagues took on the pro bono case of a Black man from  Alabama wrongly accused of murder. After several years, he eventually won a new trial which resulted in an acquittal for the innocent man.  He said that they “had the most valuable tools and credentials. You must use your tremendous power to do tremendous good in your own sphere of influence.”

We should all do no less.

Deborah C. Wright, chairwoman, CEO and president of Carver Federal Bancorp Inc.

Some of Wall Street’s largest financial services powerhouses, including Goldman Sachs Inc., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc., helped save Carver Federal Bancorp Inc. from a possible shutdown or takeover by injecting $55 million of fresh capital into the nation’s largest Black-owned bank.

Carver, No. 1 on the BE Banks list with $744 million in assets, announced last night that it raised the money from an investment group that includes Goldman and Morgan Stanley—which agreed to put in $15 million each—and Citigroup and Prudential Insurance Company of America—which invested $10 million each. Investments of $2 million each by American Express Co. and First Republic Bank, and $1 million by the National Community Fund round out the capital raising team for Harlem-based Carver, parent of Carver Federal Savings Bank.

Carver Chairwoman, CEO and President Deborah Wright, who will continue to run the financial institution, was pleased and relieved with the outcome. Wright told Black Enterprise that the seven institutional investors each acquired an equity (preferred stock) position for their investment. But unlike other capital investments into struggling banks, the investors will not have voting power, seats on Carver’s board, or sway its management decisions.“Thank goodness we got the money, and we’re really thrilled with the results,” Wright said. “The capital raise exceeds the regulatory capital requirements established by the OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision].”

Wall Street appears happy with the deal. Carver’s stock closed at 80 cents
a share today, up more than 45% from 55 cents a share yesterday, and the
bank’s biggest stock gain since early April.

The capital lift comes after analysts estimated earlier this year that Carver must raise nearly $20 million in new capital by April 30, to meet orders by the Office of Thrift Supervision, the primary regulator of all federal and a number of state-chartered savings banks.

(Continued on next page)

William Michael Cunningham, social investment adviser at Creative Investment Research Inc., a Washington, D.C. firm specializing in minority banking, said the deal is good for the bank because it nearly triples the amount of capital Carver needed to survive. “It will give Carver a chance to remain in business and hopefully provide capital to its under-served community,” Cunningham said.

Wright said the investment provides the bank a financial cushion in a period of economic uncertainty to cover future loans. She said it also gives the bank the opportunity to grow the franchise new products and expanding products, such as Carver Community Cash, a new check cashing service for the “unbanked.” Wright said Carver has launched the product at two of its branches in the New York area and will offer it at the remaining seven branches later this summer.

Analysts told BE in April that the stakes would be high for 63-year-old Carver to pursue investors to invest new capital with the bank losing money in recent years. In its latest results released today, Carver reported a net loss of $5.5 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 versus a net loss of $2.2 million the same time last year. For all of fiscal 2011, the bank had a profit loss of $39.5 million compared to a loss of $1 million in 2010.

“This has obviously been among the most challenging periods we’ve faced at Carver,” Wright said in a press release. “Our loss in fiscal 2011 reflects the impact of charge-offs and provisions required to address troubled loans in our loan portfolio, as well as the substantial reserve taken against our deferred tax asset.” Referring to the bank’s financial woes, Wright said the capital injection “will allow us to transition from the impact of the recession and invest in opportunities to return Carver to profitability.”

In addition, Carver also announced yesterday that the U.S. Treasury agreed to exchange the $19 million in preferred shares it received from the bank under the Troubled Asset Relief Program for about 34.8 million shares of common stock.

Bank consultant Bert Ely, president of Ely & Co. in Alexandria, Virginia, said the capital deal will allow Carver to remain independent and get out of regulatory trouble for the time being, regarding its capital concerns, however, the bank will still need to address whatever other regulatory issues it may have.

Google unveiled its new social network, Google+ (Image: File)

• Former Black Vice President Steals Millions From Citigroup

Gary Foster, a black man and former vice president at Citigroup, is being accused of embezzling $18.4 million from the Wall Street giant. It was reportedly a one man heist that involved a series of secret money transfers, which resulted in his surrender at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday night, directly off of a flight from Bangkok.

Read more at The Atlanta Post…

• Memphis’ First African-American Mayor Dies at 76

J. O. Patterson Jr., the politician and clergyman who was the first African American to assume the office of mayor in Memphis, succumbed to kidney failure on Saturday. He was 76.

He was appointed interim mayor of Memphis 1982 after Wyeth Chandler stepped down to become a Circuit Court judge, and also served as the bishop of the Church of God in Christ and a pastor at Pentecostal Temple.

Read more at The Root…

• Brooklyn Mother Suing Cornell Frat: “Hazing Killed My Son”

Marie Lourdes André is suing the fraternity that killed her only son, George Desdunes, who died during a hazing ritual at Cornell University on February 25, 2011. She claims that the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity kidnapped him, forced him to drink to the point that his blood alcohol level was five times the legal driving limit, left him bound on a sofa for hours, and then tried to cover their tracks by removing the binds. The bereaved mother hopes her $25 million law suit against the frat will inspire much tougher regulation of frat houses and their absurdly dangerous hazing practices. It would give some purpose to the meaningless loss of her son’s life.

Read more at The Atlanta Post…

• Post-Katrina Bridge Killings Trial Begins in N.O.

Perhaps the most explosive and explicit example of police brutality in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina took place on September 4, 2005, when a group of officers gunned down six unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans.

Nearly six years later, the trial of five current and former NOPD officers is now underway in federal court in New Orleans. Four of the officers accused in the case are charged with civil rights violations for the shooting, which killed two, including a teenager and a mentally handicapped man, and left four others severely wounded.

Read more at Black Voices…

• Google+: First Impressions

Google has just unveiled Google+, its ambitious answer to Facebook. It turns all of Google into one giant social network, thanks to a core group of social products and a new navigation bar that integrates sharing into every single Google product.

Read more at Mashable…

• Microsoft Office 365 Launches

Microsoft Office 365, the technology giant’s suite of productivity apps for the cloud, made its global debut Tuesday.

The cloud-based software places Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Lync into the cloud. The product was first introduced last October as Microsoft’s way to bring its popular collaboration and productivity products to the web. Office 365 comes with all of the Office Web Apps (Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint), as well as email support and Microsoft Access. Essentially, Microsoft has created one product for all of its cloud-based productivity software.

Click here for more…

VIDEO: Watch Richard Parsons’ Power Player profile on the Black Enterprise Business Report

In celebration of our 40th anniversary, Black Enterprise is taking a look both forward and backward at the world of black business. Our list of 40 “Titans: The Most Powerful African Americans in Business–and How They Shaped Our World” recognizes and pays homage to the entrepreneurs and business men and women who paved the way for all of us. Follow our countdown of the most important black business leaders of the four decades since Black Enterprise Magazine was founded in August 1970.

These are the men and women who fought the odds, suffered setbacks, regrouped, and eventually emerged victorious. Whether they conducted business from their own offices or the executive suite, their professional excellence, deal-making prowess, and unwavering advocacy converted promise into channels of prosperity and levers of power. These are the pioneers who withstood the elements—institutional racism, resistance from the business establishment, and lack of resources—to plant a flag on their own patch of territory.

These are the Titans: bold leaders who shattered conventional modes of commerce. Because of their contributions over the past 40 years, the world of business has been transformed forever.

Be sure to pick up the commemorative 40th anniversary August 2010 issue of Black Enterprise, which contains the entire Titans list.

Shell-shocked investors are fleeing financial stocks in droves. Intuitively, that means the industry is now a place to look for bargains. Surely there must be banks, brokers, and insurers who avoided the traps that snared the big players. Finding them, though, isn’t easy. “Shifting through the data can be complicated,” says Anton Schutz, manager of Burnham Financial Industries Fund (BURFX). “Your best chance is to invest through an actively managed fund, where someone is picking stocks. If you buy a financial exchange-traded fund (ETF), which tracks an index of financial stocks, you’re buying bad companies as well as good ones.”

In general, actively managed mutual funds haven’t been as hard hit as Citigroup or AIG. Still, according to fund tracker Morningstar, specialized mutual funds lost nearly 44%, on average, in 2008. Schutz’s fund is an exception, though: it lost only 7% in 2008, followed by a gain of nearly 13% in the first half of 2009. Under Schutz’s guidance in 2008, Burnham Financial Industries Fund received the Lipper Performance Achievement Certificate for posting the best record out of 91 funds in its category.

So what is Schutz holding now? “Among the major banks, we see opportunity in Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). When things get back to normal, the company could earn as much as $4 a share. It’s trading at [more than $12] now, so the stock could double or triple in the next couple of years,” Schutz says.

Bank of America isn’t the only financial institution Schutz likes. He’s touting smaller players like People’s United Financial (NASDAQ: PBCT), which has branches throughout the Northeast, and TFS Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: TFSL), parent of Third Federal Savings and Loan Association of Cleveland. “These are among the banks that have excess capital now,” says Schutz. “They’re buying back their own stock because the values are so compelling now. And they might be able to make acquisitions, too.”

Historically speaking, savvy investors like to buy shares in institutions that are likely to be taken over by larger firms. Given the state of the financial industry today, says Schutz, “the winners might be the buyers.” Acquirers know the industry, the logic goes, and are likely to know which companies represent good value at currently depressed prices.

The major reason for the depressed share prices in the financial sector, of course, has been weakness in real estate, which led to increasing defaults on mortgage loans. Even so, Schutz sees opportunities in the mortgage business for one company whose shares he’s been scooping up lately: Chimera Investment Corp. (NYSE: CIM), a real estate investment trust that buys mortgages. “The company has been acquiring loans at a discount to their net asset value,” says Schutz. His overall reasoning: If it becomes apparent that the loans acquired by Chimera are relatively sound, values could move up sharply, thereby driving up the company’s stock price.

What about insurance companies? “Our top holdings include MetLife (NYSE: MET) and Travelers (NYSE: TRV), both of which have excellent financial strength,” Schutz says. Both insurers’ stocks are off sharply from last year’s highs so they could bounce back when investors are convinced the financial sector includes winners as well as losers.

By November, the national unemployment rate reached a 15-year high of 6.7%—African American unemployment stood at 11.2% —while the four-week average for job claims increased to more than 540,000, a level unmatched in 26 years. Among the hardest hit have been white-collar workers: Outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas found that in November, major corporations led by Citigroup and other financial service firms shed more than 181,000 employees, the greatest number of such workforce casualties in seven years.

Corporations, large and small, have not fared much better. According to figures released in December by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, business bankruptcy filings increased 49% during the federal government’s 2008 fiscal year, from 25,925 to 38,651.

Small businesses, considered the engine of our economy, have been severely hampered by the ongoing credit crunch. And as leviathans, such as the Big Three automakers, remain trapped in an economic tailspin, their suppliers desperately seek to steer clear of the wreckage.

So what should you do if you’re an executive who has avoided the recent maelstrom and still receive a paycheck at a viable albeit leaner company? Or what if you’re a CEO of an enterprise that’s in search of the magic bullet to grow revenues, boost market share, and snare lucrative contracts? My advice is simple: fire yourself.

I’m not sharing with you the punch line to a bad joke. Instead, I’m offering you a powerful strategy that can help you reinvent—and reinvigorate—your career or company. As an executive or an entrepreneur, you operate a business that is under siege from an unmerciful economy and predatory competitors. Survivor’s guilt, lethargy, and outmoded thinking will not enable you to survive in today’s business environment. Innovation and execution will.

I embraced the concept of self-termination when I read a blog by Avon CEO Andrea Jung. A few years back, she was on the firing line after missing revenue and profit targets for two consecutive quarters. A board member told her that she was going to be dismissed in a few months if she didn’t correct course.

He advised Jung to “fire” herself over the weekend and “rehire” herself as the company’s new turnaround artist. The move allowed her to make hard choices—cutting 30% of her staff, changing her marketing strategy, and revising poor investment decisions. Within two years, Jung had produced Avon’s best financial performance in decades—without compromising the company’s core values.

By taking a similar tack, you can release the baggage of emotion and convention to give your career a boost or your company a fresh start. To be successful in this ever-changing climate, rethink everything and fully understand today’s global marketplace to seize every possible employment and entrepreneurial opportunity. That’s the only way to identify a niche or fill a void.

Reinvention will require the development of a mission statement for your career, company, and life. Then, like Jung and others, establish a strategic plan that communicates your competitive advantage and ensures you will achieve your goals. In producing this comprehensive blueprint, adopt an old B-school philosophy I’ve followed for years: what gets measured gets done. In other words, define success through the use of objective metrics.

By firing yourself and rebuilding your résumé, you will not be a survivor hanging on for the next paycheck or contract. You’ll be a leader who will be able to direct your destiny.

Earl G. Graves Jr. is the president and CEO of Black Enterprise.

Parsons succeeds Sir Win Bischoff, who became chairman in December 2007 after the company fired CEO and Chairman Charles Prince. Bischoff, who has been with Citi since 2000, said he won’t stand for re-election to the board at Citigroup’s next annual meeting and will retire from the company later this year.

“I look forward to continuing to work with the board and management of Citi in my new capacity as we continue to strengthen the company’s core franchise and build value for our shareholders,” said Parsons. “As always, we will strive to provide superior service to our clients and maintain a dynamic workplace for our employees.”

Citigroup has had five straight quarters of losses and received $45 billion in government. Last week, the company reported a fourth-quarter loss of $8.29 billion and said it would reorganize into two units as it struggles to stay afloat.

In early trading Thursday, Citigroup shares fell 58 cents, or 16%, to $3.09.

Citigroup’s board has been the target of much scrutiny among investors for allowing the bank to invest so heavily in the risky housing market, reports the Associated Press. As that criticism rose over the past several weeks, so did speculation that Parsons — one of the only directors with experience in both banking and leading a large company — would become chairman.

The was also much speculation that Parsons would be named commerce secretary in the new Obama administration to after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination due to an investigation into campaign contributors and state contracts. Parsons was also a member President Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Board.

In a separate Securities and Exchange Commission filing Jan. 14, Citigroup said that three executives have passed up bonuses. Bischoff, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden have turned down incentive and retention awards that were offered to members of the bank’s executive committee.

In Parson’s five years as CEO of Time Warner, he tamed a sprawling, unruly media octopus. Silencing early critics, he took a rudderless company with disparate holdings, such as Warner Bros. studios, HBO, the Time Inc. stable of magazines, and AOL, and transformed it into a uniform, functional enterprise. He simplified the corporate structure, strengthened the balance sheet, and discarded nonperforming assets. That’s not to say he hasn’t had major challenges.

Parson’s joined Time Warner as its president in February 1995, and has been a member of the company’s board of directors since January 1991. As president, he oversaw the company’s filmed entertainment and music businesses, and all corporate staff functions, including financial activities, legal affairs, public affairs, and administration.

Before joining Time Warner, Parsons was chairman and CEO of Dime Bancorp Inc., one of the largest thrift institutions in the U.S. Previously, he was the managing partner of New York law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.

He held various positions in state and federal government, as counsel for Nelson Rockefeller and as a senior White House aide under President Gerald Ford.

Parsons received his undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii and his legal training at Union University’s Albany Law School.

Parsons’ civic and nonprofit commitments include co-chairman of the Mayor’s Commission on Economic Opportunity in New York; chairman Emeritus of the Partnership for New York City; chairman of the Apollo Theatre Foundation; and service on the boards of Howard University, the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History. He also serves on the boards of Citigroup and Estée Lauder.

Citigroup Inc. is cutting more than 50,000 more employees in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles after suffering major losses from deteriorating debt.

The New York-based bank, which has already reduced its assets by about 20% since the first quarter of the year, also plans to trim expenses by 19% in 2009 from third-quarter levels, to $50 billion.

The plans, announced on the company’s Web site, were discussed by CEO Vikram Pandit at the company’s town hall meeting in New York today.

The company said it is shrinking its work force by 20% from its 2007 peak of 375,000. The company had already announced in October that it was eliminating about 22,000 jobs from that level. When all cuts are implemented, Citigroup total workforce will be about 300,000 employees.

About half of the expected work force reductions will come from business sales and the other half of the reductions will come from layoffs and attrition, a spokesman said.

In late-day trading, Citigroup shares were down almost 3.5% to $9.19. Overall, U.S. shares were lower, with the New York Stock Exchange down 83 points to 8414.31.

Citigroup had previously announced that it was selling Citi Global Services and its German retail banking business, accounting for about 18,000 jobs. Citi is planning to sell other businesses, too.

The New York-based bank has posted four straight quarterly losses, including a loss of $2.8 billion during the third quarter.

Citigroup’s cuts are the second largest job-cut announcement on record, according to outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., which has tracked downsizing announcements daily since 1993. The Citigroup announcement matches a job-cut announcement affecting 50,000 workers made by Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1993.

Which leads us to this: What is the Fed going to do with rates again this month? Comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other officials all but assured the market that the Fed will further cut interest rates and attempt to prevent the economy from sliding into recession.

Although the Fed has now cut interest rates by one percentage point over three straight meetings, bringing the federal funds rate down to 4.25%, the cuts seemed “tight”. And after each of the three cuts, the Fed has sent the financial markets a clear impression that they are unsure about what to do next.

An economic recession is often defined as a period of negative gross domestic product growth for two or more successive quarters of a year. However, I like newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris’ definition: “a recession is when you lose your job; a depression is when I lose mine.”

The U.S. economy seems to be facing ever-greater risks of entering a recession, especially with the latest statistics on job unemployment, activity in the manufacturing sector, and consumer confidence—not to mention the weakening U.S. dollar. Under these conditions, the Fed should give priority to avoiding a recession, and not concerning itself with inflationary risks at this moment.

Results at major financial firms this week are expected to continue to reflect the impact of subprime mortgages. Especially from Citibank who is expected to report earnings on Tuesday, and Merrill Lynch on Thursday. Merrill Lynch, the nation’s largest brokerage firm, is expected to report losses of $15 billion stemming from bad mortgage investments, according to a published report Friday.

Some key data will also be closely monitored this week. Tuesday will bring reports on December producer prices and retail sales. Wednesday will be busy with the release of the December consumer price index, industrial production data, and the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book of economic conditions. On Thursday, we’ll get December housing starts and weekly jobless claims. Friday will bring a key consumer sentiment survey along with leading economic indicators.