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Louis Prezeau
Louis Prezeau left Haiti with his entire family in 1960 due to political insecurity and settled in New York. As a determined young man, Louis then put himself through college, taking night classes while working various jobs. At the same time he was raising three children with his wife, Ramona. Louis studied public accounting at Baruch College and upon graduation, went to work for an accounting firm and eventually became a certified public accountant (CPA) in 1970.
In 1975, Louis entered the field of banking by joining Freedom National Bank where he worked as a Controller. Moving up the ranks, Louis eventually served as the bank’s acting President. Due to his strong management skills and financial acumen, he was approached by City National Bank of New Jersey (CNB) where he became, and remains, President and CEO since 1989. CNB’s primary mission is focused on providing its immediate community with banking services, which may be unavailable to them through larger institutions. Ranked as one of the country's top ten African-American owned and operated financial institutions in the United States, CNB currently has branch operations serving New Jersey's Essex, Bergen and Passaic counties and New York's Nassau county, Harlem and Brooklyn communities.
Louis was first introduced to Fonkoze in 1997 when he met Anne Hastings, the Director and Father Joseph, the Coordinator. His initial thoughts following that meeting were, "I was really excited to see their commitment to help Haiti and I just felt that if they were willing to do that, as a Haitian-born, I should really lend some support."
Louis recognized that the two institutions shared broadly similar missions – providing access to credit to people who were deserving but did not meet the criteria of traditional financial institutions. “I think that Fonkoze's work in adult literacy and micro-credit to those without access, such as the ti machann, is a worthwhile and admirable cause.”
Fonkoze approached Louis to see if he could help them figure out how to set up a low-cost, efficient money transfer service that would allow Haitian Americans to send remittances back to their families in Haiti. They formed a partnership and Fonkoze’s money transfer service kicked off operations in 1998. What convinced Louis to get involved? "Fonkoze had offices in very remote sections of the country where people wouldn't normally have access to wire transfers. I thought that made a lot of business sense.”
In addition to supporting Fonkoze’s money transfer service, Louis is also an investor in Fonkoze Financial Services. “One of the attractions of being part of Fonkoze is that they have a social commitment and operate in a business like manner. I felt it was a worthwhile investment.”
"I feel very fortunate. I come from one of the poorest countries in the world. I come from a family that was not poor, however, I still worked hard to get my education and succeed at my profession. God's been good to me. If I can give a little back, that's the least I can do."