Fail Locally, Think Globally

Erin Callan, deposed last month as CFO of Lehman Brothers, has moved over to Credit Suisse. Her position is a brand new one: global head of Credit Suisse's hedge fund business. Before she moved to the management suite at Lehman she advised hedge funds there and is best known for her "involvement" in the IPO of the private-equity fund Fortress.

This is an excellent example of failing up. At Lehman, Callan's main duty was shoring up investor confidence in the venerable investment bank. The result was the opposite: Lehman's shares have tanked and rumors of its possible demise linger.

But here's the funny part: Fortress, since its IPO, has also tanked. The share price topped $30 in Fortress's first week of trading in February 2007. Now it's around $9. Compared to Lehman, that's good. Otherwise: bad. And for this, Paul Calello, CEO of CS, points to Callan's "proven track record."

Not sure what the proof is. Maybe she attracted clients the way she attracted cameras while at Lehman -- she was the rare banker whose personal shopper was in the news . Or maybe Calello figures that anyone who can get investors to pay $30 for Fortress must be pretty good