Banking & Finance
Money in the bank
How J. Michael Fulton relies on good people and a strong strategy to lead Comerica’s Western Market
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business | September 2009
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Earlier in his career with Comerica Inc., J. Michael Fulton was an account officer in Detroit and was working on the Chrysler relationship. At the time, Chrysler was near bankruptcy, so Fulton was flying to New York every week, because the bank had so much money tied in to the automobile company. It made for some long trips and late nights, but before he crashed to get some shut eye, he always did something that seemed so small at the time.
“These were the days before computers but after abacuses,” Fulton says. “I’d go home, and I’d type up the memo, everything that happened in the meeting, and I’d go in the next morning, and I’d put it on the chairman’s desk.”
He didn’t have to do that, but he just thought it would be nice for him to know the details of these meetings since they seemed very important. That simple act got him noticed. Down the road, that chairman plucked him out of his position and put him in a greater role, which springboarded Fulton’s career. He eventually led the company’s entry into the California market through the acquisition of a San Jose-based bank, and today, Fulton is president of the bank’s Western Market, overseeing more than 2,000 employees in about 100 locations. During his nearly four-decade career with Comerica, he’s learned the right — and sometimes wrong — ways to lead in business.
