Mr. Reef is the retired Chairman and CEO of Citishare Corporation, a subsidiary of Citigroup. He joined the subsidiary in 1986 and held several positions prior to becoming CEO in 1988. Citishare is in the retail electronic funds transfer business and processes transactions, including money transfers, for ATM, POS, PC, and chip card devices. During Mr. Reef's tenure, Citishare expanded from one to more than 50 countries including China, where three deals were completed, FX income became a significant revenue stream, volume increased two orders of magnitude (100 X) and several growing and innovative products were introduced, including real-time money transfers, mobile phone payments, pre-paid card access, cross-border in-branch access, etc. From 2000 to 2008, volume increased 250% and unit costs were reduced over 50%. Mr. Reef participated in the boards and advisory committees of several US and global payment businesses, including NYCE, The Clearing House, Visa, the EFTA (Electronic Funds Transfer Association - a WDC trade association), and MasterCard's and Europay's Maestro, a global PIN POS system.
Prior to joining Citishare, Mr. Reef held systems and operating positions in Citicorp's Investment Bank, Citicorp's Consumer Bank and Citicorp's U.S. Corporate Bank. In the Investment Bank, Mr. Reef ran Government Securities Trading Operations, replaced the Fed Securities Wire processing system, provided the funding desk with real-time information and replaced or modified several trade support and custody systems. In parallel with several of these positions, Mr. Reef was an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University, training students to build content for and manage the new telecommunications-driven entertainment industry (cable TV, teletext, and, later, the Internet). Mr. Reef also worked for A. G. Becker, a regional Wall Street investment bank, and was a consultant with the former Touche Ross & Co. In the early years of his career, Mr. Reef worked for the U.S. Congress' GAO organization. In this capacity, he wrote sections of the bill that reorganized the U.S. House of Representatives and conducted the first automated legal retrieval for a Congressional committee.
Today, Mr. Reef is a consultant specializing in the global payment business and financial operations productivity improvement. Among the topics he's address recently are: prepaid cards, electronic money transfer, global ACH access, Internet payments, and debit and credit card processing. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Acculynk, Inc., a company that provides secure PIN debit services for Internet transactions. He is also a member of the Board of Visitors of Columbia University's School of Engineering and is a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the Westchester, N.Y. Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).
Mr. Reef holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and M.S. in computer science from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science.
