In this interview, David Lykken interviews Anthony Meola about his experience as a leader spanning his career in the banking industry.
Tony Meola was the U.S. Consumer Operations executive for Bank of America.
In this role, he led holistic operation functions for the Consumer Banking and Legacy Asset Servicing businesses. Tony’s responsibilities included mortgage and specialty servicing operations, loss mitigation and liquidation for default mortgage servicing, collections and recovery, enterprise fraud and claims management, service delivery and enterprise customer complaints.
Tony has 27 years of leadership experience within the banking industry, including his previous position as CEO of Saxon Mortgage, a Morgan Stanley company.
In this role, he was responsible for all aspects of Morgan Stanley’s domestic, residential mortgage business strategy and operations. He originally joined Morgan Stanley in June 2007 as chief operating officer of its U.S. Residential Lending Operations. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley Tony has also held senior leadership roles at Washington Mutual, PNC Mortgage and Citigroup Mortgage.
Tony earned his B.S. degree in accounting from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in Newark, N.J. He is the executive sponsor of Bank of America’s Southern California Black Professional Group (BPG) chapter and the Women Leaders Network and an avid supporter of the company’s employee networks and Diversity and Inclusion efforts. He is a member of the faculty of the joint effort of the Ross Business School at University of Michigan and Bank of America in operational leaders development. He is also the former chairman of the Lender Leadership League at the Five Star Institute, a former member of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Residential Board of Governors and the Housing Policy Executive Committee. In addition, he is the author of the book 90 Days to Success as a Manager. In 2013, he was awarded the Five Star Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the mortgage industry.
Mr. Meola specializes in turn-around operations and is generally regarded in the industry as a problem solver and a dynamic leader.
Mr. Meola is the author of the book 90 Days to Success as a Manager, published by Cengage Learning and available at Amazon.com,Borders, Barnes and Noble and most book stores . His book is a virtual guide to get you up and running day one. 90 Days to Success as a Manager is your action plan regardless of your field. He also does Public Speaking engagements.
Topics Covered in this Interview:
- Listen: These two things really helped me out... Being well-thought out and understanding operating discipline and its values.
- Listen: The values of culture and how to create a mindset at a company... and understanding the concept of true north...
- Listen: What I think about, I talk about, I bring about...
- Listen: One of the things that happens to leaders is that they look at challenges in a negative fashion... definition of positive intent...
- Listen: How can I create value for you today? I was brought in to create a new way forward post the crisis...
- Listen: Here's what I think happens to companies who have that bell curve...
- Listen: The thing that I enjoy the most is helping people achieve their goals...
- Listen: Lateral thinking challenges us to think of all the disciplines...
- Listen:As you look at great leaders, there's a number of attributes that they have in common... and self awareness is at the top of the list...
- Listen: One of the biggest mistakes in leadership today...
- Listen: The key to becoming authentic... be true to yourself...
- Listen: How do you prepare for a staff meeting? How can you not think about that moment...