Nilo Barredo is Willing to Step Back to Leap Forward

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Nilo Barredo grew up in a community of Cuban exiles in northern New Jersey, surrounded by a strong Latino community. He says his upbringing is similar to so many whose parents left all behind and met in a new country, amidst the backdrop of new beginnings and the associated challenges. Those parents instilled the importance of always doing what’s right, self-sacrifice and hard work, regardless of where Barredo’s path would take him.

“Everything I’ve done along the way has been a testament to my upbringing,” Barredo says. “Everything I do now, I do for my own family and its future, and to pass these values and principles to my own children. The goal is to give your children more than you ever had. My parents did it for me, and, boy, do I feel blessed for the life I’ve had; I aim to do the same.”

Barredo isn’t just a Legal 500 GC Powerlist: Miami or IFLR honoree. He’s not just the Americas head of legal for Banking and Lending at Citi Wealth. He’s not just a Rutgers triple major who speaks three languages, or an Ivy-trained lawyer. Nor is he just a finance and securities subject matter expert, or a mentor and role model for how a motivated Latino can honor his upbringing by making an incredible leap forward in terms of his life and career ambitions. Barredo understands what it means to adapt, to transition, and to sometimes take a step back to make that jump forward.

“You have to do what you believe is right based on the circumstances at the time. Sometimes that means taking a shot outside of your comfort zone.”

Nilo Barredo

Early in his journey, Barredo spent a year engaging in litigation and arbitration. It’s a path he encourages future lawyers to pursue.

“That kind of experience allows you to see what happens when things go bad,” the head of legal explains. “It teaches you to anticipate issues and to become a better lawyer, issue-spotting and seeing those potential landmines.”

But after that year, Barredo knew he wanted to make deals come together. He wanted to unite people, not divide them, advising on the financing of big projects across industries that would have an impact across communities globally.

Barredo was building out experience in securitization and capital markets right around the time the bottom fell out of the market in 2007. The lawyer remembers getting off a plane on a work-related trip to the Dominican Republic, checking his BlackBerry, and seeing a barrage of both panicked emails from his colleagues and recruiters reaching out about potential roles.

Luckily, Barredo was very busy at the time, but he saw the writing on the wall. His firm let him leave with a partner. He relocated with the firm’s entire Latin American practice to a new home where he diversified in banking transactions across domestic and international markets.

The more experience and the more deals Barredo closed over time, the more he realized his career trajectory needed to evolve. After moving to a new firm and building a substantial book of business, he knew he wanted a new challenge and something different from his career.

“I wanted to be there not just for the deal, but before it and after it,” Barredo explains. “To have one principal client whose strategy I could help shape, and not a myriad of clients where I dropped in from time to time. My kids were at the age where if I was going to make a serious move, I needed to do it then. And I chose to come to Citi.”

Accepting that role, however, meant uprooting Barredo’s and his family’s life in New York City and New Jersey to relocate to Southern Florida. And the role he was taking in wealth management wasn’t exactly what he would consider a strong suit.

“From a personal perspective, wealth management and private banking were not concepts I grew up with,” Barredo says, “and professionally I had generally worked with large institutions, generally on corporate financing.”

But his skills and experience were adaptable and transferable. Barredo has always been a quick study. Since joining Citi in 2015, he has been promoted four times, including his current title as Americas head of legal with Citi’s Wealth Banking & Lending division. The move in-house was exactly what he was hoping for, allowing him to critical initiatives and matters across the Americas and globally.

“Client service is at the heart of what we do. You own the advice that you give, and you are an integral part of everything that occurs,” the legal head says.

“Today, I’m not just trying to close the deal. Surely, we all want that—it puts food on everyone’s table. However, I’m helping shape strategy, helping my team proactively progress business interests and solve problems, and advising key stakeholders to make the right decisions for the firm at large; not just from a legal perspective, but as a trusted advisor with an ownership stake in what we do. One way I approach things, for example, is considering how it would be seen if a certain decision was front and center of The New York Times. We have a franchise to care for—how does it need to be approached?” he says.

Whether it’s an escalated situation, a geographic region of business, new product or project, or a major regulatory matter, Barredo looks to be a guiding hand for his team, helping them grow as accountable owners and become leaders in their own right. The head of legal is a mentor for his in-house team as well as recent law school graduates, and even those considering going to law school.

“Everything I do now, I do for my own family and its future, and to pass these values and principles to my own children.”

Nilo Barredo

“I know you can look at my resume and assume it’s just been this natural evolution, but I try to stress to people that I mentor that the market has done some wild things and required me to adapt and chart a new path at times,” Barredo says.

“You have to do what you believe is right based on the circumstances at the time. Sometimes that means taking a shot outside of your comfort zone, moving on from places that you’ve dedicated so much to or leaving big law in the city and driving 1,500 miles south to start something new where you believe you can make a difference,” he says.

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