execSearches Job Posting: Executive Director, Distinguished Young ...

Posted
10/16/2012
Region
South East
Function
Executive, Fundraising, Operations, Program Admin/Management, Management
Industry
Higher Education, Non-profit, Women/Girls, Arts and Culture

Distinguished Young Women

Mobile, Alabama

DESCRIPTION OF THE ORGANIZATION:
Distinguished Young Women is a national nonprofit corporation that is headquartered in the historic district of Mobile, Alabama. It was founded in 1957 in Mobile and each June 50 state winners come to Mobile to participate in the national finals. Distinguished Young Womens mission is to inspire high school girls to develop their full, individual potential through a fun, transformative experience that culminates in a celebratory showcase of their accomplishments. The program provides college scholarships and opportunities for personal growth and community service. More than 17,000 volunteers across the nation operate county and state Distinguished Young Women Programs. More than 730,000 young women across the country have participated in Distinguished Young Women and more than $100 million in cash scholarships have been awarded at the county, state and national levels.

PURPOSE:
The Executive Director administers all facets of the national office including development, staffing, budgeting, strategic planning, and the national finals. He or she will represent the organization externally to foster effective relations with current and potential donors, sponsors, and granting agencies. The Executive Director is the face of Distinguished Young Women to the Mobile community and the nation.

POSITION SUMMARY:
The Executive Director will work directly with the Board of Directors on strategic planning, budgeting, and fund development to further the mission of Distinguished Young Women. He or she is responsible for staffing the national office and providing guidance and inspiration to the multitude of volunteers. The Executive Director reports to the Board of Directors.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:
The successful candidate will possess a Bachelors degree, at least five years experience in fund development and business/nonprofit management. He or she will possess excellent written and oral communication skills; the ability to analyze situations and propose solutions; excellent organizational and project management skills; proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite; and a belief in the mission of Distinguished Young Women.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:
Act as the spokesperson for the organization and its mission in the Mobile Community and throughout U.S.
Ensure the integrity and consistency of the organization at all levels (county, state and national)
Oversee all aspects of implementing the organizations Strategic Plan including set goals for fund development; state and local program growth; and increasing national awareness for the program
Develop, with the assistance of the Boards Development Committee, and any consultants, the fund development strategies and campaigns for the national office
Work with the Board of Directors and outside contractors to develop National Sponsors
Develop a comprehensive timeline and plan of action for all development activities including fundraising events
Recruit and retain a professional, dedicated staff
Create and manage annual budget
Oversee the annual national finals event in Mobile, AL
Assist in recruiting and orienting Board members; and in Board governance
Develop creative partnerships with other organizations to further the mission of Distinguished Young Women
Perform other duties as directed by the Board of Directors
Maintain a positive, supportive, cooperative, proactive, and can-do attitude towards work and co-workers in fulfilling the mission of Distinguished Young Women

Areas of Responsibility
Fund Development (30%)
Create Fund Development plan to satisfy $750,000 annual budget for Distinguished Young Women
Plan, develop, and execute strategies for obtaining private donations, including identifying, cultivating and soliciting major gift prospects (individuals, corporations and foundations)
Secure funding from government sources
Develop and monitor annual fund campaign targeting alumnae, local businesses and individuals
Plan and develop solicitation and training materials for Board Development Committee
Develop a stewardship plan to ensure the best match between the person soliciting for the organization and the potential donor, and retention and recognition programs to meet the varied needs of donors and potential donors
Develop leads and coordinate solicitation efforts associated with obtaining national sponsors
Oversee fundraising events by securing event chairperson, recruitment and management of event committee, soliciting event sponsors, managing event coordinator, and attending and participating in fundraising events

Administration (15%)
Create and manage the $750,000 annual budget for Distinguished Young Women
Manage budget and review monthly financial statements
Review and approve all contracts, leases, and agreements for equipment and services
Review and approve all invoices and sign checks (over $500 requires two signatures)
Hire, manage, motivate, and evaluate staff members
Assign staff to standing committees of the Board
Facilitate communication among staff members for shared projects
Ensure internal and external communication mechanisms (telephone and computer/email systems) are efficient and cost-effective for the entire organization
Ensure compliance with county/state/federal taxes and laws

Board of Directors/Governance (15%)
Assist in recruiting, orienting, and motivating board members
Work directly with the President and Executive Committee
Facilitate and participate with the Board in strategic planning for the organization (every three years)
Implement the strategic plan, allocating personnel and financial resources as necessary
Assist in governance of the Board of Directors including updating governing documents, maintaining minutes and policies of the board, and seeking legal counsel when necessary (including bylaws updates, trademark work, and 501c3 v. 501c4 issues)
Work with President on agendas for all Board and Executive Committee meetings
Attend and participate in all Board meetings and Executive Committee meetings, and committee meetings as necessary

State Programs (13%)
Manage staff National Field Director
Oversee policies, including contestant and franchise agreements and guidebook for all state and local programs
Oversee content for State Chairperson workshops and seminars
Attend 2-3 state programs annually depending on budget
Facilitate focus groups with National Field Director to ensure quality support to state and local programs
Participate in work sessions to increase participation at local and state levels

Communications (12%)
Manage staff Communications Director
Be the face of the organization to the Mobile Community and the Country
Attend appearances with Distinguished Young Woman of America as appropriate
Provide organizational perspective for internal and external communications including newsletter, website, and mass emails and mailings
Present the organization to service clubs and other organizations in the Mobile area to foster goodwill and educate the public on our mission and impact
Act as liaison between Distinguished Young Women and local government agencies
Promote Distinguished Young Women at local events and meetings
Participate as member/organizations representative in local service clubs and organizations including Rotary and Mobile Chamber of Commerce

National Finals (10%)
Supervise volunteer National Finals Chairperson
Select judges, striving for diversity in gender, ethnicity, geography, and expertise
Hire and manage professional production crew
Oversee content of national finals activities for contestants, families, and state representatives
Oversee content of national finals production, including show theme and script content
Attend orientation meetings for host families; national committee chairs; has beens, and entire national committee
Organize and facilitate intense staff work session to cover every aspect of national finals events
Troubleshoot and problem solve during the two weeks of national finals
Be the organizations leader and representative speaker before Parents, Sponsors, State Representatives, and Contestants
Participate in new Distinguished Young Woman of America orientation
Send handwritten personal thank you notes to every sponsor, participant, family, and committee members

Alumnae (5%)
Manage part-time Alumnae Coordinator
Assist with strategic planning to keep Alumnae involved as donors, volunteers, and mentors

General (3%)
Ensure that board and staff meet the best interests of the organization at all times, using a global perspective
Motivate staff, board, and other volunteers to keep them excited about Distinguished Young Women
Seek new opportunities for partnerships with national organizations such as Boys and Girls Clubs as an avenue to share the Be Your Best Self program
Seek national media opportunities
Constantly seek new ways to make the best use of the limited resources of the organization (time and money)
Leverage all connections and contacts for the most positive exposure of Distinguished Young Women

Foundation (2%)
Hire, train and manage part-time foundation administrator
Troubleshoot questions and issues with state or local programs
Troubleshoot questions and issues with scholarship recipients
Participate in Foundation Board meetings

Contact Information

Distinguished Young Women
751 Government Street
Mobile, AL 36602

251-438-3621
251-431-0063 (fax)
search@distinguishedyw.org
http://www.DistinguishedYW.org

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Fear really resides in a different area of the brain than its inhibitory mechanisms

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2012) ? Do you suffer from a phobia? Maybe arachnophobia? Then you know very well that even if you do not feel uneasy when imagining a huge and hairy tarantula in the therapist's office, you still jump out of the shower screaming upon seeing a tiny spider. Why is it so hard to get rid of a phobia?

Extinguishing the fear response does not consist of erasing the memory of the fear provoking stimuli, but creating new, competitive memory traces. It has been suspected for some time that neuronal brain circuits responsible for extinguishing fear differ from circuits involved in reoccurrence of the fear response. This assumption has finally been experimentally confirmed. Novel experiments, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), have been conducted by scientists from the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw. This research team was headed by Dr Ewelina Knapska, Dr Jacek Jaworski and Prof. Leszek Kaczmarek.

"Research has been carried out using a special, genetically modified strain of rats developed in the Nencki Institute. As a result we were able to observe the connections between neurons activated in the brains of animals experiencing fear," explains Dr Ewelina Knapska, head of the Laboratory of Emotions Neurobiology in the Nencki Institute.

Fear, a strong, spontaneous reaction of the organism to a given stimulus, is significant in evolutionary terms. An animal experiencing fear has a better chance of survival in unfriendly environment. However, excessive fear causes anxiety disorders, which can significantly hinder functioning of the organism.

Anxiety disorders in humans and animals can be treated by behavioural therapy. It involves exposure to fear triggering stimulus or stimuli in a safe environment. Multiple exposures to such stimuli cause the individual not to react with fear in response to them.

In practice, extinguishing fear is neither permanent nor complete. People with the disorder may well stop reacting to the stimulus in the therapist's office, but any change in the environment, for example entering the street, may cause fear to recur. In as many as 70-80% of people with the disorder fear re-emerges within a few years from treatment completion.

"Earlier studies have suggested that the memory trace of fear is established within the structures of the amygdala, which are controlled by the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus," says Dr Knapska.

Brain structures responsible for learning and extinguishing fear have developed early in the evolution process and therefore can be studied experimentally in animals, such as rats. For the experiments to be possible at all, a method had to be developed for tracing the reaction of individual neurons to fear stimulus or the lack of it. To achieve this, the rat genome had to be modified. This genetic modification was developed by Dr Jacek Jaworski from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and Dr Morgan Sheng from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"In the brains of modified rats, a certain fluorescent protein accumulates in the synaptic endings of active neurons," explains Dr Jaworski. It is known that the accumulated protein remains in activated cells for several dozen hours. That makes it easy to later identify the cells which reacted to a given stress stimulus in microscopic preparations. Illuminated with light of a given range, they glow in green.

Genetically modified rats exhibiting the desired reaction to the stress stimulus were exposed to situations of high or low level of fear. The procedure was designed in such a way as to ensure that the fluorescence marker would accumulate only in the cells which react to the fear triggering stimulus. Analysis of microscope images of the animal brain tissue identified within the lateral nucleus of the amygdala two subpopulations of neurons, partially mixed spatially, but functionally independent.

"We have studied the nervous connections from the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus to the amygdala. The first two brain structures tell the animal, where and when it has previously encountered the present situation, while the amygdala processes emotions. It turns out that the connections activated at the time of the reoccurrence of the fear reaction are different from those activated when fear is extinguished," explains Dr Knapska.

Research methods developed by the scientists from Warsaw will in the future guide the search for pharmacological agents, which would precisely target individual neuronal networks responsible for fear and its inhibition. That would constitute an important progress in phobia treatment. For compounds developed to date impact not the individual neuronal circuits but entire brain structures. This means that once applied they could erase memory traces in an uncontrolled manner.

"Our method of marking active neurons is flexible. In the future we plan to use it to gain knowledge about neuronal connections typical for behavioural contexts other than fear," stresses Dr Knapska.

Studies have been financed from grants awarded by the Foundation for Polish Science, National Science Centre, 7 Framework Programme of the European Commission and ERA-NET NEURON program co-financed by the National Centre for Research and Development.

The Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences has been established in 1918 and is the largest non-university centre for biological research in Poland. Priority fields for the Institute include neurobiology, neurophysiology, cellular biology and biochemistry and molecular biology -- at the level of complexity from tissue organisms through cellular organelles to proteins and genes. There are 31 labs at the Institute, among them modern Laboratory of Confocal Microscopy, Laboratory of Cytometry, Laboratory of Electron Microscopy, Behavioural and Electrophysiological Tests. The Institute is equipped with state-of-the-art research equipment and modernized animal house, where lab animals are bred, also transgenic animals, in accordance with the highest standards. Quality of experiments, publications and close ties with the international science community, place the Institute among the leading biological research centres in Europe.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. E. Knapska, M. Macias, M. Mikosz, A. Nowak, D. Owczarek, M. Wawrzyniak, M. Pieprzyk, I. A. Cymerman, T. Werka, M. Sheng, S. Maren, J. Jaworski, L. Kaczmarek. Functional anatomy of neural circuits regulating fear and extinction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; 109 (42): 17093 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1202087109

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/7VURedQUqng/121018100123.htm

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Russia opens probe against opposition leader

MOSCOW (AP) ? In a new sign of a widening crackdown on Russia's opposition, investigators on Wednesday opened a criminal probe against leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov and several other activists for allegedly plotting mass riots.

The Investigative Committee said in a statement it will investigate claims made in a recent documentary aired by a Kremlin-friendly TV channel that opposition leaders worked with Georgian officials to overthrow the government. But Udaltsov is not officially suspected of that more serious charge.

Udaltsov, a 35-year-old, shaven-headed Communist who wore a Stalin T-shirt for his wedding, has been one of the most recognizable faces of last winter's anti-government protests in Moscow, which were legal and peaceful.

Investigators, backed by armed men wearing ski masks, searched Udaltsov's apartment in south Moscow for more than five hours on Wednesday. The home of his parents was also searched, said Violetta Volkova, Udaltsov's lawyer.

"I'm going to hold on until the end, and I won't be quiet," Udaltsov said as he left his home for an interrogation escorted by masked armed police. "It's a wave of new repression."

A documentary aired last week on NTV, a channel seen as a propaganda arm of the Kremlin, showed what it says was footage of the Left Front leader meeting with officials from neighboring Georgia to discuss raising $200 million for protests against President Vladimir Putin, and plans for organizing riots in Moscow.

The Investigative Committee said that it would pursue criminal cases against not only Russians, but also citizens of Georgia and other unspecified countries.

"Once their involvement in the preparation of criminal acts is established, they will be subject to criminal liability under Russian law and the norms of international law, and will be issued with international arrest warrants," the committee said.

Officials in Georgia have refrained from commenting on allegations of Georgia's involvement with the Russian opposition. Lawmaker Givi Targamadze, who was featured in the NTV program as the mastermind of Georgian support, was not available for comment on Wednesday but told Georgian media last week that he had never met Udaltsov.

Udaltsov said he has met "a great number of people" recently to discuss fundraising, but all of his efforts and intentions are legal. He has insisted the footage presented in the documentary has been doctored.

The Investigative Committee said Wednesday that it had carefully studied the footage and said it was not tampered with.

Renowned human rights activist Lev Ponomarev told the Interfax news agency on Wednesday that a "broad crackdown on the opposition is very dangerous for this country" and said that early morning searches reminded him of secret police tactics in the 1930s in the Soviet Union.

The Russian Communist Party, which forms the largest opposition faction in parliament, has supported Udaltsov, dismissing allegations against him as nonsense. Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said Udaltsov is being persecuted for his views.

"The main goal is to nip the protests in the bud," he told Interfax. "There's no one left in the Kremlin who can say 'no' to that."

In addition to Udaltsov, the criminal investigation is targeting two little known Russian leftist activists, but their role in the alleged plot was not identified.

__

Nataliya Vasilyeva and Mikhail Metzel from Moscow, Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Peter Leonard from Almaty, Kazakhstan, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-opens-probe-against-opposition-leader-072622357.html

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Liberal group asks for criminal investigation of Gessler's travel to GOP events

A liberal group Monday called for a criminal investigation of Secretary of State Scott Gessler, alleging he broke the law by spending state money to attend the Republican National Convention and a GOP election law training event.

Colorado Ethics Watch sent a letter to Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and Denver Police Chief Robert White requesting an investigation into whether Gessler made false statements about travel expenses incurred on his trip to Florida in late August and if he misappropriated state funds. In August, Gessler attended the Republican National Lawyers Association meeting in Sarasota and then traveled to the Republican National Convention .

Gessler was reimbursed $1,452 from his office's discretionary account. His office also paid $422 out of its regular budget for a flight change to bring him home a day early, something he said was necessitated because of threats against his family.

Ethics Watch also filed a complaint with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission, asking the panel to investigate Gessler's actions.

"Ethics Watch believes the secretary's Florida trip was manifestly personal and political in which he participated only in partisan events, not in pursuit of state business," said Luis Toro, the group's director.

Gessler was unavailable for comment, but his spokesman, Andrew Cole, said the allegations by Ethics Watch were to be expected.

"This is the kind of partisan behavior Ethics Watch is known for," Cole said. "It shouldn't come as a surprise that they would attack a Republican secretary of state, just as they have in the past."

Gessler's request for reimbursement was titled "RNLA/RNC Trip, Sarasota and Tampa Bay," but he has defended his trip to the lawyers association meeting as state business. He spoke on a panel titled "The Department of Justice, the Role of the States and Voter ID," and said he received continuing legal education credit for attending the conference.

Gessler also has been criticized for using state funds for a Washington, D.C., trip in July in which he visited two congressmen but also attended a forum organized by a conservative group that alleges elections fraud by the left and met with an official of a Republican group whose aim is to elect GOP officials at the state level.

Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626, thoover@denverpost.com or twitter.com/timhoover

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21778992/liberal-group-asks-criminal-investigation-gesslers-travel-gop?source=rss

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Can The Mentally Ill Still Find Love? : Relationship Forum - Psych ...

Chasies,

this is a very honest and maturely written thread.

Young man, what you are facing is a dilemma that many people who suffer from MI face. Although I am sad to see that you are suffering from such a young age, sometimes early diagnosis can actually prepare someone for situations that become more influential as we grow ? relationships being one of them.

I think you did a very good analysis of your past issues. As you said, when you were in your first important relationship you were not well, you started experiencing more severe symptoms, you were still adjusting to your new medication..that can be a lot and the timing for love was very bad . Even if everything else was perfect, just your young age could have contributed to the unhappy outcome of your important relationship. I did many stupid things when I was young and I don?t have a diagnosed MI.

What I want to say is that you should not feel like a failure or someone of a less value or chances of success just because you?ve had that negative experience. You are young, you are smart, you are working hard on your career, you have taken responsibility for your psychological improvement (as much as realistically possible). You are doing everything in your power to build a successful path for yourself. And, most likely, you will succeed in that.

On the other hand, you are right that your symptoms may and probably will fluctuate from time to time and that, at times, you may emotionally feel much worse than now. You are also right in your observation that you may then put a strain on your relationship. That is the harsh and unavoidable reality of MI. But it should not stop you from searching for ?the one? . See, relationships have their peaks and valleys, just like our lives do and sometimes we lose someone who is very important to us. And then we have 2 options: to try to repair what?s broken or to move on and keep on searching for what we believe matters.

I know it is difficult and I know the dilemmas that are filling your mind and emotions, but I am just trying here to encourage you to look at yourself as a man who first and foremost belongs to a group of young people who sail through young adulthood and learn from trial and error, from exposure, pain, loss , or occasional moments of unbelievable happiness and not as someone who is flawed or destined to damage his future partners. When such time comes that you find someone who will be very special for you, and you will know that because you will become crazier than ever, lol you will intuitively know how to start a conversation about your issues. Or she will do that for you. You will definitely need to help your partner understand you since most people have not even heard of schizoaffective disorder, let alone be able to understand it without help, but if you both have achieved sufficient level of maturity your love will guide you where no prep or advice could.

Dear Chasies, I wish you many interesting and experiential relationship years and at least one woman who will make you feel like what Anthony Hopkins described in "Meet Joe Black":

"Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head, and you listen to your heart. And I'm not hearing any heart. Cause the truth is, honey, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, cause if you haven't tried, you haven't lived."

Source: http://www.psychforums.com/relationship/topic99063.html

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Auburn commitment to visit Florida

Lawrenceville (Ga.) Central Gwinnett linebacker Trey Johnson has been committed to Auburn since August 2011, but the prospect appears to be making room for new suitors.

The 6-foot-1, 222-pound Johnson now says he will begin to take visits again, including two of them to Gainesville.

?I?m taking an unofficial to Florida this weekend,? Johnson said. ?Then I will take an official to Florida in December. Florida has never stopped recruiting me, and they have been recruiting me hard. That means a lot to me.?

Florida linebackers coach D.J. Durkin has been the recruiter Johnson has spoken to the most.

?Me and coach Durkin talk a lot,? Johnson said. ?He tells me he wants to get me down there for another visit and he wants me to apart of the family there.?

Johnson hasn?t been to campus this fall, but he has been watching the Gators on TV a lot.

?The defense has been playing really well,? Johnson said. ?I think I fit into the scheme well, as I?m aggressive and that?s the style of play that coach (Will) Muschamp likes.?

The Central Gwinnett prospects said that even though the Gators have three linebackers already committed, he isn?t worried about potential competition at the position.

Johnson said he is still committed to Auburn, but he wants to make sure of his decision.

?I?m still a strong commitment,? Johnson said. ?But I?m still looking and trying to figure things out and with coach (Gene) Chizik?s status up in the air that?s weighing on me some.?

Ohio State, Southern California, Auburn and Florida State will also receive official visits from Johnson this year.

About the author

Andrew Spivey

Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.

Source: http://www.gatorcountry.com/football_recruiting/article/auburn_lb_commitment_to_visit_florida/15415

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Citigroup's margins rise, results beat expectations

(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc made more money from trading in the third quarter and its lending profitability rose, surprising investors and lifting the bank's shares 5.5 percent.

Profit dropped after the third-largest U.S. bank wrote down the value of its retail brokerage business by $4.7 billion, but mortgage lending profit rose and results overall were better than analysts on average had expected.

A key element of the report was the profitability of the bank's loans, excluding credit losses, which rose as the bank cut its funding costs by taking in more low-cost deposits. Deposits rose 11 percent to $945 billion at the end of September from a year earlier.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co both posted shrinking loan profitability last week, raising concerns about how low interest rates could wallop bank profits for some time. On a conference call with investors, John Gerspach, Citigroup's chief financial officer, cautioned that the bank's lending margins may contract slightly next quarter.

The global economy is tough for the biggest banks, as demand for many types of loans is sluggish, regulation crimps profits in many investment banking businesses, and low rates weigh on lending profits.

The environment is another headwind for Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, who is trying to fix Citigroup after it required three government rescues during the financial crisis. Pandit is now retooling Citigroup to focus on commercial and investment banking, transaction processing, and retail banking for relatively wealthy customers globally.

The bank's Citi Holdings unit, which houses businesses and assets the bank sought to shed after the crisis, continues to weigh on the bank. Citi Holdings lost $3.56 billion in the latest quarter with the brokerage writedown, compared with a loss of $1.22 billion a year earlier. But the unit is also shrinking - it had $171 billion of assets in the third quarter, compared with $191 billion in the second quarter and $582 billion in the middle of 2009.

Including the brokerage unit writedown, Citigroup overall posted third-quarter net income of $468 million, or 15 cents a share compared with $3.77 billion, or $1.23 a share, a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings, excluding the writedown of $2.9 billion after taxes announced last month, and accounting gains and losses, was $3.27 billion, or $1.06 a share, beating analysts' average estimate by 10 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The bank's net interest margin, a measure of profit on loans that excludes credit losses, rose to 2.86 percent from 2.83 percent in the same quarter last year and 2.81 percent in the second quarter.

Citigroup said profits from commercial and investment banking increased 67 percent in the third quarter on stronger revenue from fixed income and equity markets and lower expenses. Client demand for transactions drove the volume, which was a switch from a year earlier when the European debt crisis was darker and it seemed no customers wanted to go near the markets, Gerspach said.

Retail banking revenues in North America grew 35 percent, primarily reflecting higher mortgage revenues.

The higher mortgage revenues were the result of wider profit margins on mortgage loans Citigroup made and sold to investors, Gerspach said on a conference call with reporters. Mortgage originations declined 15 percent to $14.5 billion, but the bank expects mortgage refinancing to be strong into next year, executives said on a call with investors.

"We are still on a very good pace," with new mortgages, Gerspach said. "We did not staff up as quickly as perhaps we otherwise could have."

He added that the bank is less interested in market share of mortgage refinancings than controlling expenses.

Gerspach declined to agree with the description that the housing market has turned the corner as JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon said on Friday.

"I have difficulty seeing corners sometimes," Gerspach said. "In the past, we've seen some of these periodic improvements only to see them come crashing down."

Results outside the United States were generally weaker, with income from its continuing international consumer banking business down 3 percent and profits in transaction services provided to businesses and governments outside North America down by single-digit percentages. Some of the weaker numbers abroad were the result of changes in foreign exchange rates.

The results boosted the company's standing on the pending regulatory scale of safety known as Basel III Tier 1 Common Ratio. Citigroup pegged its reading on the scale at 8.6 percent, up from 7.9 percent three months earlier and higher than its goal for year-end of 8 percent.

Analyst Todd Hagerman of brokerage Sterne Agee said Citigroup now has enough capital to make a case to regulators that it should be allowed to pay 15 cents a share in quarterly dividend next year, up from its current, nominal one cent.

Pandit, however, refused to forecast to analysts whether the company would win approval from the Federal Reserve to distribute capital in the coming round of annual stress tests. Citigroup's last capital plan was rejected by regulators in March. Pandit said that, since then, Citigroup officials have been meeting with regulators and were able "to get some access to the people who actually run the models."

Citigroup shares have soared in recent months, rising 27 percent since the end of June and gaining nearly three times as much as the KBW Banks Index.

In September, Citigroup agreed to sell its 49 percent interest in the brokerage to Morgan Stanley at a price that valued the unit at $13.5 billion. At the time, it said it would take a charge to reduce its carrying value for the asset by about 40 percent.

The joint venture was created in the financial crisis in 2009 as a way for Citigroup to shrink by transferring its Smith Barney brokerage assets to Morgan Stanley.

The company's shares closed 5.5 percent, or $1.91, higher at $36.66 on Monday.

(Reporting by David Henry and Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina.; Editing by John Wallace, Tim Dobbyn and Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/citigroup-profit-drops-writes-down-brokerage-unit-120348952--sector.html

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