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Profile: Member of the Board of Governors

Margaret Brooks-Llamas

(Winter 2007 Newsletter)

Margaret Brooks - Llamas was born in San Juan, Rizal, Philippines, and raised in that country’s summer capital of Baguio City. A high achiever from an early age, she graduated from high school at the age of only 14. She then traveled the 250 kilometers from Baguio City to Manila to attend the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia and, in terms of student population, the largest Catholic university in the world located on one campus.

Her mother had always stressed the importance of education, and fondly hoped Margaret might some day become a doctor. Thinking she wanted that too, Margaret took pre-med courses at the University of Santo Tomas. However, with her first year of studies completed, she realized her relative lack of interest in organic chemistry would be an obstacle to a medical degree. After some negotiation with her disappointed mother, Margaret switched her major to psychology and graduated from the University of Santo Tomas magna cum laude at the age of 19.

While in graduate school at Ateneo de Manila University, a job offer side-tracked Margaret’s completion of a clinical psychology degree. A local firm that sold cemetery plots hired her to apply her psychology training to their human resources department. Not long after taking this position though, Margaret found herself in the middle of a serious labor dispute. A dire situation even for a veteran labor negotiator, it was especially challenging to Margaret who, fresh out of college, had no experience in arbitrating a volatile labor crisis. To make matters worse, the company she represented paid its workers poorly, had outdated labor practices, and the union representing the workers was headed by an avid Marxist. “Soon after the strike was called, Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines, and strikes were outlawed,” Margaret recalls. “So I guess I was saved by martial law from failing at my first labor negotiation job.”

Still only in her early twenties, Margaret was hired by Citibank in Manila to run its Human Resources Department. Not long after, her husband took a position with a London firm, and Margaret moved with him and their young son to the United Kingdom to attend the London Business School where she earned an MBA. Citibank in London then hired her as head of its management training center for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. “That was one of my favorite jobs,” Margaret recollects. “It was like running a mini-university for bankers. We covered the whole range from credit to marketing to technology to management operations.”

What was to have been a two-year stint in London turned into 14 years. During that time, Mrs. Brooks-Llamas held a variety of positions with Citicorp that took her back and forth from the United States to London, and into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She served as head of Citicorp’s university relations department, targeting business schools and liberal arts institutions to identify and mentor future banking and business executives. Then, after a short period as head of Human Resources for Citibank’s European Investment Bank, she ran Citicorp’s Human Resources for emerging markets in third world, developing, and former Soviet-bloc countries.

In the early 90s, Margaret served on one of ten task forces to help bring Citicorp back from the brink of failure. She worked closely with the chairman of the company to implement recommended changes to the corporate center and then stayed on to head executive resources. She was responsible for designing and supervising Citicorp’s leadership staffing and development processes, and the staffing of the top 300 positions in the corporation.

At this juncture, Mrs. Brooks-Llamas began to realize that though she liked her job, its costs were taking a toll on her—16-hour days and so much travel. “I realized it was time to readjust the balance equation of my life,” she explains. So, in 1998, Margaret took a 3-year leave of absence during which she thought and prayed about the direction her life should take.

Having made retreats and done the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, it became clear to her that she could make the best contribution by doing the work she both loved and did well, but doing it in a different way. Instead of offering her services in an enormous corporate environment, Margaret decided she would do consulting work for individuals and organizations. This would give her an opportunity to do more in terms of giving back to others.

With this new goal in mind, Mrs. Brooks-Llamas retired from Citicorp and founded her own company, Veris International in New York. Her international consulting firm focuses on four areas of corporate human resources: strengthening the leadership team, developing a leadership pipeline, aligning organizational values and individual/team performance and development, and developing business-responsive human resources strategies and practices. Margaret now consults with a whole range of companies in a variety of fields, from hospitality to media; some are Fortune 50 companies, while others have just a few dozen employees.

For some years Margaret had been aware of and impressed by Thomas Aquinas College through her friendship with College faculty member Mark Clark, who had taught her son at the Portsmouth Abbey School in Rhode Island. She was formally introduced to the College at a weekend seminar, similar to classes at the College, given by President Dillon at a Board member’s home in New York. When she experienced firsthand the substance and rigor of the kind of discussions that take place at Thomas Aquinas College, Margaret felt a pang of envy and wished she had had that kind and quality of education for herself.

Margaret Brooks-Llamas was elected to the Board of Governors in November of 2004.

Q. What attracted you to Thomas Aquinas College?
A. It’s a college that lives its faith. There’s a certain serenity about Thomas Aquinas College, and there’s a certain consistency between what they say and what they do. I had met Dr. Dillon and had attended his seminar in New York, which I truly loved. But it was when my younger son visited the College that I really began to consider it a place that needed my support. My son had come out to the College to visit Mark Clark, a faculty member. Mark arranged for him to stay on campus where he roomed with some of the seniors. When my son came home, he told me his visit to Thomas Aquinas College was the first time he experienced a genuine Catholic community. He said it was the real deal. He met other young people who not only talked openly about their faith, but lived it as well. It made him consider, quite seriously, whether he was living his life as they had been living theirs. He was 21 at the time, and I thought that any institution that had the power to cause a young man to re-examine his own life was very impressive and worth supporting.

Q. How does your experience as a human resources (HR) executive make you an effective member of the Board of Governors?
A. I believe that when Dr. Dillon first approached me about joining the Board, my experience in corporate management and my HR background were certainly deciding factors. The College itself is an organization with its own managerial requirements and challenges. I think the Board believed I could bring that kind of perspective. Clearly, when you enter any organization you take yourself with you and you take your experiences, your own lenses with which you see the world and see how you can help an organization. I can bring a certain global perspective from having lived and worked in very different cultures. I’ve also worked in organizations where true equality was possible, and I see myself as a role model for female students.

Q. As a patron of the arts in New York, what are your thoughts about music at Thomas Aquinas College?
A. Though I have yet to be on campus for a Schubertiade, I have experienced many impromptu musical performances during my visits. There is certainly a lot of talent at the College. Sometimes when I come for Board meetings, I sit back and listen when they are having a musical performance. That’s what I like about the College. It seems to develop the whole person. It’s not just about academic achievement or achievement of the mind. It’s achievement of the spirit, of culture, and of the arts—a cultivation of all things beautiful.

Q. Is the educational experience at the College different from other institutions with which you have dealt?
A. Very different. The students at the College are committed to their studies and committed to living good lives. It is so refreshing because in other settings I find people much more self-absorbed and keen about succeeding and measuring success in terms of who will get ahead. What I find in the students at Thomas Aquinas College is keenness toward using their talents for the greater good. I have found these students devoted to their work and to one another. Sometimes I have informal dinners and meet with other faculty members and meet with former students. I’m always fascinated by the quality of the conversation and by what they seek to do with their lives. Thomas Aquinas College is a wonderful microcosm of what the world could be if it weren’t so fallen.

-- Qtrly Newsletter, Winter 2007