BankBoston Corp. is gearing up to compete in wholesale banking against much bigger rivals, including Chase Manhattan Corp., Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan & Co.
The $73.5 billion-asset company said this week that it hired Linda Zider from BankAmerica Corp. to be a managing director and head of wholesale bank marketing, a new post.
Ms. Zider, 50, created the same function at BankAmerica in San Francisco five years ago.
"To compete, you have to have strong strategies and strong marketing programs in place," Ms. Zider said in a telephone interview.
She will have broad oversight of marketing and sales management within BankBoston's wholesale bank, which accounts for 46% of the banking company's profits. She said she plans to work with the heads of various business lines to target products and services to particular segments, including the middle market.
"We think we can differentiate ourselves," she said. "We have the opportunity as the world changes to take the lead in this particular market."
That is because competitors like Chase, Citi, and Morgan focus more on larger companies, Ms. Zider said.
Few other banking companies have one person overseeing wholesale marketing, Ms. Zider said. But she predicted the role would become more popular as banks try to take market share from traditional Wall Street investment banks as well as from each other.
BankBoston's decision to create the post came six months after its purchase of Robertson Stephens & Co., an investment bank, from BankAmerica.
Other executives in similar roles include Truett Tate of Citigroup's Citibank unit. He is responsible for research, data base management, and coordination of marketing and sales efforts for business relationship managers, a Citi spokeswoman said. Mr. Tate reports to Alan S. MacDonald, executive vice president and head of customer management in the corporate bank.
J.P. Morgan has a small merchandising group in its investment banking operations that performs similar functions, a spokesman said.
Ms. Zider said she plans to make use of some of the data mining techniques now employed in consumer banking. She has multifaceted marketing experience. Before joining BankAmerica in 1994, she was head of Southern California financial institution clients for International Business Machines Corp. Before that, she had been a researcher at Levi Strauss & Co.
In her new job, she reports to Paul Hogan, vice chairman and head of corporate banking at BankBoston.
BankAmerica said it is conducting a search for Ms. Zider's successor.
