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Spanish thrives in Miami today. But Frances Aldrich Sevilla-Sacasa’s parents used to send her away from the city so she could practice speaking the language of her ancestors.
“Today, Miami is a very international community, a Latin community,” she says of her hometown. “But in the 1950s it wasn’t. My parents wanted me to learn Spanish really well.”
The daughter of Spanish/Cuban immigrants to south Florida, Sevilla-Sacasa spent several summers visiting relatives in Spain and Mexico, and she studied during high school and college in Switzerland and France.
The international exposure helped her develop strong linguistic abilities. She speaks English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and some German. Sevilla-Sacasa, who graduated from Thunderbird in 1978 as Frances Aldrich, also learned to become comfortable around people of different nationalities.
Her multicultural background helped her climb the corporate ladder from Latin American loan officer to private banker to senior financial services executive.
Today, at age 52, Sevilla-Sacasa serves as president of U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, where she oversees 4,600 associates including private bankers, investment advisers, trust officers and financial planners. She was named to that position last year, shortly after Bank of America purchased U.S. Trust from Charles Schwab.
U.S. Trust, based in New York, operates 144 offices and manages $225 billion in client assets on a discretionary basis. The firm’s well-heeled clients hold nearly $350 billion in total assets. U.S. Trust caters to some of the nation’s wealthiest people — generally those with at least $3 million or more in investable assets.
Sevilla-Sacasa, who sits on Thunderbird’s board of trustees, acquired an appreciation for education from her parents. Her father, an attorney, left Spain following the Spanish Civil War and wound up in Cuba by way of Italy. Her mother was born in Cuba, also of direct Spanish descent.
“My father twice had to leave a country and start over again,” she says. “It instilled in us the qualities of persevering, being focused and always trying to do the best we could.”
One of her brothers is a cardiologist, and the other is an attorney and accountant.
Her father had to establish his law credentials in the United States by returning to school at the University of Miami with a young family.
Her mother has been active in providing social work to Cuban immigrants in south Florida. She co-founded Centro Mater in Miami, an agency that provides day-care help to working immigrant families.
Thunderbird connection
Like her father, Sevilla-Sacasa studied at the University of Miami, earning a bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish with a minor in business before heading to Thunderbird.
“Some of my professors at the University of Miami recommended Thunderbird based on my international passions, my language skills and because I was also studying business at the time,” she says.
She was one of the youngest students in her Thunderbird class, graduating at age 22 with a focus on finance. She remembers the low-key feel of the school back then, situated as it was in the middle of agricultural fields.
Sevilla-Sacasa appreciates the interaction she had with a mix of students of different nationalities and backgrounds, most of whom were older and had spent at least a couple of years in the work force, including international assignments.
“Part of the education was being with students from a lot of different cultures, areas and experiences,” she says. “I loved the international mix of the School.”
She also picked up Portuguese while at Thunderbird, which turned out to be a catalyst for her career. The timing of her degree also helped.
Flourishing in Florida
Upon returning to Miami after graduating, Sevilla-Sacasa joined a regional financial institution called Southeast Bank and spent two years there in an international training program focusing on credit issues. “At the time, international banking was booming, and Miami was developing into this wonderful international community,” she says. “A lot of banks were setting up their Latin American headquarters in Miami. It was perfect for someone like me who was born in Miami with international passion and skill sets and an interest in people.”
Because of her fluency in Portuguese, Sevilla-Sacasa was assigned to the bank’s Brazilian debt portfolio, spending the next five years as an international lending officer.
But by the early 1980s, Latin American nations were defaulting on their escalating debt burdens, and Sevilla-Sacasa sensed it was time to try something different. She joined Bankers Trust as a private banker.
In her new role, she came to provide intensely personal financial services to clients in cash management, investment, estate planning, tax, business banking and other areas. The new position fit well with her interest in people and cultures, and it made use of her language proficiency because many of her clients were European or Latin American. In many cases, clients were business owners, and she appreciated dealing with key decision-makers. “I also liked establishing long-term relationships with families and extended families,” she says.
Sevilla-Sacasa’s passion for different cultures and global topics continues. “She’s very interested in our work in educating young people in this country on international affairs,” says Noel V. Lateef, president and CEO of the New York-based Foreign Policy Association, where Sevilla-Sacasa sits on the board. “She’s also one of the outstanding women bankers of our time, a role model who adheres to the highest standards of ethics and who enjoys a wonderful reputation in the business world.”
Sevilla-Sacasa eventually rose to the position of president of the Bankers Trust international private banking corporation. She followed that by becoming managing director of Deutsche Bank’s Latin American private banking unit, president of Citigroup’s Latin American private banking unit and president of its European private banking operation. She also worked in the securities business for Lehman Brothers.
Private bankers aim to become the trusted advisers of their clients, and sometimes that involves extra duties outside the office. On one occasion, Sevilla-Sacasa had to hurry to an airport to pick up a client’s children who flew to the U.S. quickly for a personal emergency. The client asked Sevilla-Sacasa to pick up the children and check them into a hotel until he could meet up with them later.
“You do tend to be on call 24/7 because you never know when clients will need you,” she says.
In 1984, she married Eugenio “Gene” Sevilla-Sacasa, with whom she has a son and two daughters ranging in age from 12 to 21.
Her husband is a Miami-based vice president and managing director of Ryder Latin America, part of transportation/supply chain management firm Ryder System. He joined the company in 1983 as a financial analyst after earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from Mexico’s Instituto Technológico de Monterrey, following that with an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. “We feed off each other for (work-related) ideas and suggestions,” she says. “But mostly we enjoy our family together and talking about things not dealing with business.”
Making time for family
Sevilla-Sacasa concedes that juggling career and family hasn’t always been easy, especially since so many of her working hours have been spent on airplanes, in hotel rooms and in meetings far from home. She has missed many of her children’s school activities over the years and even some of her wedding anniversaries. But she credits the assistance she has received from her husband, other relatives in the Miami area and a long-time nanny and housekeeper.
Sevilla-Sacasa doesn’t express a strong opinion either way on whether her status as a trailblazing woman in banking during the late 1970s and 1980s helped or hindered her career. But she does think many women have qualities that help them in banking.
“Women tend to be good listeners,” she says. “They’re service-oriented, and they establish a lot of relationships.” Many women also can juggle numerous responsibilities, she adds, and they often are patient, willing to seek feedback, work well on teams and have a passion for helping others.
As head of U.S. Trust, she’s involved in setting the strategic direction for the business and making sure it gets executed. “I spend a lot of attention on details,” she says. “I spend a lot of time with associates articulating our strategy and inspiring them to do their best with clients.”
The international travel has slowed because U.S. Trust’s clients are mainly domestic. Still, she spends many days traveling around the nation, meeting with staff and the firm’s clientele.
Sevilla-Sacasa stresses teamwork and bringing together associates with different perspectives and strengths. “I like to set the strategy and give people their directions and responsibilities — tell them what they need to accomplish and hold them responsible for that,” she says.
‘Grace under pressure’
Wealthy clients have many of the same basic needs and concerns, regardless of their national background. Sevilla-Sacasa says these needs include wealth preservation, efficient intergenerational asset transfers, business banking and philanthropic goals.
“Being able to service clients better than anyone else — that’s what’s really exciting,” she says.
She sees the role of private bankers becoming more critical these days, especially from large firms with a broad range of services and expertise, and sufficient breadth to provide continuity over many years. She describes U.S. Trust as the leading private bank in the country.
“When I started in the business, the world was a simpler place,” she says. “The financial markets were simpler. Today, the world is much more challenging and the markets more complex. Clients can’t be an expert in all areas.”
She cites the advent of an array of promising yet complex new investment vehicles geared toward the affluent, such as hedge funds, private equity partnerships and commodity funds.
Jan Hier-King, executive vice president and chief information officer at Charles Schwab, was head of human resources when the company owned U.S. Trust. She praises Sevilla-Sacasa’s help in building the business and easing the transition between Schwab and Bank of America.
“Frances typically played her role in the background, translating a vision into tangible execution,” Hier-King says. “She did this with enormous grace under pressure and was known for her ability to attract talented executives, her thoughtful analysis of issues and her many years of experience in wealth management.”
Arts and culture
Sevilla-Sacasa says she often lacks the time to pursue hobbies, but does enjoy ballet, tennis, cruising in the family boat near her Coral Gables home and snow skiing. “I have a passion for the water, whether it’s a walk along the beach or being on a boat,” she says.
She also likes spending time with her family and traveling. She says one highlight was a vacation she took with her family to the Olympics in Greece four years ago.
While career commitments in New York dominate her time, she makes room for at least a couple of weekends each month back home in south Florida.
Her philanthropic interests are focused around the arts, culture and education. She’s on the board of the Miami City Ballet, where she’ll become president next year. Mike Eidson, the board’s chairman and past president, says Sevilla-Sacasa has been unwavering in her support for the organization.
“She’ll never miss a board meeting unless she’s on an airplane,” he says. “I don’t know how she does it all.”
Eidson, an attorney who also was Sevilla-Sacasa’s neighbor in Coral Gables for many years, calls her an “oustanding face” for the organization. “She happens to be beautiful, elegant and an impeccable dresser, and all that’s important.”
Among several awards, Sevilla-Sacasa says she especially appreciates being honored by the Foreign Policy Association and by Thunderbird, where she was named the distinguished alumni member in business and finance in 2003. “That’s important because I attribute a lot of my success to Thunderbird,” she says.
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