Bank of America CEO's got a talent for making money

— -- This story was originally published on Sept. 18, 2008

Time magazine put Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis on its 2007 list of the world's 100 most influential leaders, but for 2008, the one-year wonder was expunged from the list like a bad loan.

"This is one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world," says McColl, who then pauses to correct himself. "Most powerful in the world would be more accurate."

In a separate interview Wednesday, Lewis says he doesn't think himself so mighty, although he can't think of a financial company with more global sway. He's come a long way since being born 61 years ago — in Meridian, Miss., because his hometown of Walnut Grove 55 miles away had no hospital. He was schooled in finance at Georgia State and has worked 39 years at the same company as it grew to become one of the world's most profitable, not like so many in the oil business, but in the beleaguered orb of banking that every day seems to teeter closer to collapse.

BofA has become a cavalry of sorts led by Capt. Lewis. He takes some satisfaction in lending the economy a hand with the rescue of Countrywide and Merrill, but "we're not the federal government," and says the acquisitions were not born of goodness, but because they will prove wise.

McColl agrees. "I don't know what the public thinks, but he's risk averse. He doesn't take crazy risks," says the former CEO.

Roots made him hungry to succeed

At age 10 or 11 Lewis' parents divorced. His father, then an Army sergeant, has died. His mother, Byrdine, 83, raised her children working two shifts as a nurse. Lewis says he has been employed since age 12 at, among other jobs, a filling station, a steel mill, and selling greeting cards door to door. Lewis says he was lower middle class, "not dirt poor," but McColl says Lewis was poor and that it played a role in his success.