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"Let's talk about United Way."
When Bill Couper hears this, he takes a slow, deep breath.
"OK," he says, getting comfortable in his! chair, "let's talk about United Way." Couper has been chairman of the beleaguered United Waypf the National Capital Area since Jan. 1. An investigation into the handling of United Way funds is ongoing. And Couper has his talking points ready.
"We need United Way in this community," says Couper, president of Bank of America's Greater Washington region. "It's an institution built on belief and it's a lot like banking in that respect: It doesn't exist if people don't believe in it."
When news broke about financial misappropriations at the local United Way, Couper was one of 155 people who stepped forward to help revamp the group's image by serving on its 21 member board.
"Reputation is everything in banking," Couper says. "I took into account the reputational risk and thought it was worth it."
He took the same risk when he accepted a position as regional president of NationsBank in Baltimore in 1995.
At the time, NationsBank in the Baltimore region was hampered by negative press and rounds of layoffs, but Couper helped revive the bank's reputation through corporate philanthropy and employee-backed community development projects.
"It was a time we weren't held in high esteem in the community," Couper says. "We just kept doing those things community development, volunteering, serving on boards until they couldn't ignore the good we were doing." The process culminated in September 1998 with BankAmerica buying NationsBank, which eventually was rebranded as Bank of America.
"He defined leadership by enabling our teams to collectively do better than they would have done had he not been the leader," says Gene Taylor, who was mid-Atlantic president of NationsBank at the time, and now is president of consumer and commercial banking at Bank of America (www.bankofamerica.com).
The mantra Couper minded to help NationsBank in the Baltimore region - "It's what you do rather than what you say" - is appropriate for his new post at the United Way.
But with NationsBank, Couper mended a...