Bill Brown

The big idea:

Goes by the name "One Citi." It's a year-old initiative to coordinate Citibank, Citi Cards, Smith Barney, and other affiliated business units in three targeted metro areas: Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago.

But don't look for a One Citi logo on storefronts and ATMs. "One Citi isn't a brand," Brown said. "It's sort of an internal moniker for how we deliver the company to our clients."

The goal is to leverage regional strengths - in Philadelphia, the venerable Smith Barney franchise, which was founded here, is one - and make certain that every customer who has a Citi Card (more than one million regionally) or a Citi mortgage, college loan or car loan (more than 100,000) is afforded ample opportunity to cross-patronize the other operating groups.

His Maine squadron flew a plane that tracked submarines, handling missions from the Azores to Iceland. "I sat in the back seat of a patrol plane, sort of coordinating our mission," he said. He had a crew of 12, "some officers, some enlisted, all with different gear and different specialties, collaborating and sort of integrating into one mission."

"When we got here, my wife and I decided we would jump in with both feet," he said. He is on the board of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, the Kimmel Center, the Committee of Seventy (he and his wife, Lorena, were among the 800 poll monitors dispatched during the April primaries) and Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA.

"I will tell you - Philadelphia's a tough banking town": To give one humbling example, his office is in a Smith Barney suite - inside the rival PNC Bank Building.

"We don't talk in the elevators," he said.

He has no illusions about the size of his fish in this pond: "Here in Philadelphia, for as big as our company is, this is a start-up," he said. "We are hungry locally." Since late 2006, Citi has opened 22 retail bank branches here.

Not surprising, he has taken to the Philadelphia street grid like an amphibious duck boat to the Delaware. "Without revealing too much personal detail, I live on 17th Street, right off Rittenhouse Square. Between Locust and Spruce."

In skateboarding circles ("sk8ter," if you're texting), it is nationally revered as a "renegade" park and was the only attraction Brown's 23-year-old brother-in-law from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., asked to see when he visited.

"We went to the skate park," Brown said. "Then I took him to Chickie's & Pete's."

"Boy, was I wrong about that."