CHARLES E. FIERO JR. ’50

CHARLES E. FIERO JR., an international banker and former Wesleyan trustee, died Jan. 24, 2015, at age 88. A member of Beta Theta Pi, he received his degree with high honors and distinction in economics, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. During World War II he served in the U.S. Navy. After graduation he joined Chase Bank’s training program. During his 25 years at Chase he was made vice president and was put in charge of the credit department. Later, he joined the international department and opened Chase’s first branch in Geneva; he also helped to restructure and improve Chase’s European network. In 1965 he moved to London, where he became a Board member of what was then the Standard Bank, with branches in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1968 he was asked to become Under Secretary of Commerce to check and control the U.S. funds being moved to Europe. He spent a year in Washington and then returned to Chase as directly of long range planning and corporate development. He traveled extensively in the Middle East to assess the impact of OPEC’s wealth on the world’s monetary system, and he later became an executive vice president. In 1976 he left Chase to join the Hay Group, an international consulting group, as partner and chief financial officer. He also ran sessions at Northwestern University’s business school about mergers and acquisitions. When Hay was sold, he and two others formed MLR Holdings, a venture capital firm, from which he retired at age 78. He was a trustee of Wesleyan from 1974 to 1977, the chairman of the Mount Holyoke College Parent Fund, and a member of the Board of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Among those who survive are his wife. Dorothy Hagenbuckle Fiero; three children; six grandchildren, including Christopher A. Brown ’04 and Brian C. Morgan ’09; one great-grandson; two sisters; and his brother.