Tuesday 1 March 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - Best Places to Golf in the Charlotte Area

Nicholas Calcanes is the Chief Information Officer for Bank of America, and in his free time, he enjoys golfing. He is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and there are many good places to golf, both within the city and just a short drive away. Calcanes finds that golf is a fun and relaxing way to spend time outside and enjoy being social with his friends.

Chief Information Officer 

- The Highland Creek Golf Club is the closest golf course to Uptown Charlotte. Highland Creek is surrounded by beautiful trees and is a very pleasant place to spend an afternoon. It is also one of the most popular golf courses in the area, so it is often best to come during quieter times like early mornings or late in the day.

- Carolina Lakes Golf Club is located just a forty-minute drive south of Charlotte, past the South Carolina border. It is one of the most challenging courses in the area, but also offers a special tee for families so that young, aspiring golfers can play too.

- The Chester Golf Club is located halfway between Charlotte and Columbia, South Carolina. Although it is a bit of a drive, it is considered one of the best courses in the area and is worth the trek if you are a golf fanatic. The course is considered one of the area’s best hidden gems.

Nicholas Calcanes has enjoyed playing golf at the many different courses throughout Charlotte and the surrounding area.

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - Great Things About Living in Charlotte

Nicholas Calcanes is a financial professional who lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has lived there for almost twenty years and has worked for Bank of America and Ally Financial. Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, and there are many great reasons to move to the area.
 Nicholas Calcanes
  • Charlotte is very conveniently located within driving distance of many major cities on the East Coast, including Atlanta, Nashville, Jacksonville, Richmond, and even Washington, D.C., making it a great location for nomads to move to. There is also an international airport located in Charlotte, making it easy to fly all over the world.
  • Charlotte attracts people from all over the country and from around the world, so living there is a great way to meet a diverse group of people and make connections that can help you throughout your life.
  • Charlotte has pleasant weather with a mix of all four seasons. The city rarely experiences the hot or cold extremes that more northern or southern cities do. Charlotte is also full of gorgeous foliage, and is within driving distance of both the beach and the mountains.
  • Charlotte is a great place to raise a family. The city has good schools, is a cost-efficient place to live, and is full of fun events and activities that are family-friendly. Nicholas Calcanes has two sons, and he has found that Charlotte has been a wonderful place for them to grow up.

Thursday 18 February 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - How to Use Credit as a Business

Nicholas Calcanes has worked in many different positions with Bank of America and many other financial companies throughout his career. His most recent position is Chief Information Officer, which involved, among other things, working on wholesale credit services for large corporations. Many people use credit cards for their personal finances, but they may not be aware of how to use credit effectively as a business.

Nicholas Calcanes Businesses should approach credit differently than individuals should. Businesses do not need to worry about ‘building credit’ in the same way that individuals do, but instead can use credit to help keep business running if there are any cash flow issues. Because business finance is cyclical in nature, this is often very necessary to keep a business running. Business credit lines are actually much easier to deal with than a traditional credit card, because they typically do not have the fees and minimum payments that a credit card would have.

For small business owners, it is very important to set up a business line of credit sooner rather than later. Lenders often use your business credit to assess the health of your business, and using personal credit for business operations can be detrimental to both your own credit score, as well as your businesses’ credit. Just as with a personal credit card or credit line, it is important to make payments on time and monitor all charges to ensure a good credit score for your business.

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - What is Wholesale Credit?

Nicholas Calcanes has worked in the financial industry for his entire career. He has served in many positions (most recently as the Chief Information Officer for Bank of America), and has worked on many different projects involving credit, specifically wholesale credit. While many people have credit cards and are aware of how they work, they may not be as aware of wholesale credit.

Wholesale credit stems from the concept of wholesale banking. Wholesale banking is the business of banking for large corporations or other banks. This term also encompasses most international finance. Wholesale banking is very different from retail banking, which focuses on small businesses and domestic clients. The subset of wholesale credit focuses on the process of borrowing between these large institutions.



A company that offers wholesale credit solutions will handle the credit for a large corporation at a lower rate than a traditional retail bank account. This is because the large corporation will be handling very large sums of money frequently, and the fees and interest rates normally applied to checking accounts would be very impractical and risky for transactions of this size.

Working in the wholesale banking business can be much more complicated than traditional banking services. Often, employees of merchant banks will have to deal with currency conversions and very large and complex transactions. Nicholas Calcanes has worked with many large banking companies, including Bank of America and Ally Financial, and has dealt with many wholesale banking transactions throughout his career.

Monday 1 February 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - Effective Data Management Tips

Nicholas Calcanes understands the importance of data management having worked at Bank of America for several years. After graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in both Economics, and Government, he started working at First Union Brokerage, and later at The Prudential before moving over to Bank of America. Nicholas Calcanes is the Chief Information Officer at the bank and offers these data management tips.

Data Quality Assessment
Data builds up over time and needs to be regularly accessed. Information that has errors, inconsistencies, missing fields, or duplicates can often become a problem if not identified and corrected. You will need to have an independent analysis of the data to provide you with in-depth, accurate, and detailed information of your firm’s data. Data quality assessment is an important part of data management and one that cannot be overlooked.

Nicholas Calcanes


Firewall
Data is strategic information that a firm has, and it should be properly protected. The data in your organization has financial value and it increases and relates to those who make use of it. You will need to have an efficient data firewall in place to block bad data at the point it enters the system. Cyber crimes and data theft are on the rise and protecting your data from the various threat out there are crucial.

Make Business Users Data Stewards
Several organizations have realized the importance of making business professionals take responsibility for the data they help create and feed into the system. This has helped several firms to create a unique system of data governance to effectively manage data quality. Data stewards take a leading role in managing data integrity issues and act as liaisons with the team that manages the data management infrastructure.

Nicholas Calcanes believes it is important to maintain proper a data management system, and regularly analyze data in the system.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - Understanding Why Data Management is Important

Nicholas Calcanes is the Chief Information Officer at Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Having studied economics and government at college, Nicholas Calcanes started working as Purchase and Sales Coordinator at First Union Brokerage, and later as a Registered Representative and District Agent with The Prudential. He has worked with data management and explains why data management is important for every business.

Nicholas CalcanesData is Important

Understanding how data interrelates with the business will increase your ability to link information, build strategy, and increase performance in the business. Many businesses use a variety of information in their decision-making process; however, this information is only valuable if it has been fed to the system. When decision makers analyze data in order to make decisions, and the information is not relevant, the problem lies at the entry point where the information was entered into the system. Small discrepancies can make a huge impact to a company’s performance, which is why it is extremely important that proper data management solutions and tools are put in place.

One of the most important things in data management is in identifying what data is required and where it is located. When the data is identified, it has to be extracted and prepared to be sent to the data management or storage facility. The transferred data has to be in a usable format so that it can be accessed by decision makers and used in the business. Nicholas Calcanes recommends making sure that your data is relevant and that it is regularly updated.

Friday 15 January 2016

Nicholas Calcanes - How to Make Employee Training Interesting

Nicholas Calcanes has been working at Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina for several years. He has held various top positions and has managed several teams. His leadership skills have helped him in training and motivating his team to take their performance to the next level. Training is important for all bank staff. While it is important, sometimes training sessions can become quite a drag. Nicholas Calcanes offers a couple of training tips banks can use though these training methods done necessarily convey information, it helps make training an enjoyable experience.

Nicholas Calcanes Make Training Fun

If your training sessions are dry and dull, you will notice that it will become difficult for your trainees to remember concepts and theories. Make your training sessions practical and they will remember what they learn, and soon you will see better results in their performance at the workplace. You will also need to change the pace of the training sessions to keep their interest level high.

Encourage Participation

If you expect your trainees to just sit and listen during the training sessions, they won’t learn much. However, on the other hand, if you encourage participation it will make the training session interesting. Engage your trainees to participate in the learning process. Encourage group participation, and allow trainees to speak freely because learning happens when thoughts, ideas, and feelings are involved.

Build Self-Esteem

If you are conducting a training session for your employees, they will like to know what’s in it for them. While most training programs are designed to make more money for the firm or company, you will need to let employees know how they could benefit from the program. It would work in your interest to create a win-win situation to build your employees self-esteem and self-worth.

Nicholas Calcanes recommends making training programs interesting for your employees.

Source: ​http://trainingtoday.blr.com/employee-training-resources/How-Conduct-Effective-Training-Session