ex-lehman-cfo-dishes-on-downfalls

First, Erin Callan Montella went quietly, but now she’s come back swinging.

Callan Montella spoke Wednesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” and said her decision to publish an autobiography was motivated by a need to explain herself in the wake of her own personal failures and after Lehman Brothers’ collapse.

“I wanted to take accountability for my own actions,” she told CNBC. “Nobody wanted me to fail. There was no incentive to have me fail.”

“Full Circle,” the self-published book from Callan Montella, ex-chief financial officer of Lehman, represents one of the more candid assessments of the bank’s struggle and failure in the 2008 global financial crisis. But the book also delves deeply into her own failings and broken relationships, while showcasing the pain felt by the executive once viewed as the most important woman on Wall Street.

On “Closing Bell,” Callan Montella stopped short of saying her career was ended by gender issues on Wall Street.

Callan Montella (who assumed the second surname after marrying her husband, Anthony Montella) talks about the day she was fired from the bank as it tried to beat back waves of liquidity pressures and press leaks that would undo not just her Wall Street career, but Lehman itself.

“I know I started to cry,” Callan Montella wrote, adding, “I’d given Lehman every ounce of myself for 13 years: all of my focus, energy and passion.”

ex-lehman-cfo-dishes-on-downfalls