Climbing Up the Bank Ladder
STORY BY: ELSA CAVAZOS
Calixto Mateos started his new role as Managing Director of NADB, taking on new challenges and using his past experiences to solve problems.
“MY PARENTS taught me the philosophy of hard work and studies,” Mateos explained.
While working at the Central Bank, he began his professional curriculum at the bottom, as many do when just starting. “I was doing whatever your bosses tell you to do. I was doing things like gathering data and graphing. The Central Bank is a really great institution, there is a mentoring way of doing things,” he said. Mateos got a PHD in Stanford partly financed by the
Central Bank in Development Economics. He specialized in finance and agricultural economics, once he finished he went back to the Central Bank. He began to work as a researcher and was “climbing up the ladder” to end as director.
He has also been a professor of Economics at the graduate school of business administration (EGADE) at the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM),participated in international and national seminars hosted by financial institutions, such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Mateos has been able to gain recognition not only in Mexico but all over the world.
He was once in charge of all the monetary and financial statistics of the Central Bank where he worked in an area of strategic planning called Internal Risk Unit and he soon became the head of this. “It gave me a very good view about what the bank was doing and that is how I became the manager of the Instiutional Liason,” he said.
While working on strategies, he worked with those who supervised the development banking of Banco de Mexico. He applied for a risk management position and presented a program in order to obtain it.
“Fortunately they chose me and I moved to San Antonio, five and a half years ago to become Risk Management and Control manager for the North American Development Bank,” Mateos said.
Today, Mateos leads the role of Managing Director, a position he started in November of 2019.
Mateos believes that to have a successful journey in his industry once needs to always keep broadening their knowledge. More specifically it is crucial to always be precise on data and be clear on analysis.
Mateos is passionate about improving lives and the welfare of others in the communities. He uses his experience and role to focus on this.
“I knew about funding and the way you have to deal with investors and different stakeholders and that has helped me over the years to reach the level where I am here now. I am very fortunate,” he said.
The North American Development Bank is a true binational bank. “It is a forum where you can make the two governments work together towards a common goal to achieve results,” he said.
When describing his role as a Managing Director, he sees himself as someone who has to make it happen. “I'm someone that works on making meetings go smoothly and tries to anticipate the needs of each area and present it in a way everybody will agree,” he said.
His future goals focus on increasing capital and environmental infrastructure. “Traditionally the bank has specialized in projects related to water and energy efficiency. What we want now is to focus more on sustainable development on communities. How can we put some projects in zones where they are needed the most? We are exploring more on smart cities” he said.
Mateos is passionate about the border region. He expresses how the border has integrated zones that need both regions' contributions, especially with the water processes.
Mateos advices the future leaders of the world to “always do what you like most, and that is for any career. Understand why and how your role is important to the world. Though money is important, it will come naturally while working for a bigger purpose."