Former Bank of Hawaii Corp. CEO Michael O'Neill's name has turned up on a list of candidates to be the next top executive of Bank of America Corp.

O'Neill, 63, spearheaded Bank of Hawaii's late 1990s recovery.

His popular "Tell Mike" advertising campaign and his $1-a-year base salary boosted consumer confidence in a bank that was hard hit by the collapse of the Japanese investment bubble and overexpansion in Asia.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, key Bank of America shareholders, Finger Interests Ltd. of Houston, listed O'Neill among 18 potential candidates they want considered to succeed outgoing CEO Kenneth Lewis.

O'Neill, now an outside director at Citigroup, seems to be a long shot.

Since stepping down from the Bank of Hawaii in 2004, he has remained retired And so far, press reports indicate that Bank of America is focusing on internal candidates.

That's not to say that O'Neill would not be a good CEO at BofA.

In addition to the turnaround job at Bank of Hawaii, O'Neill was Bank of America's Vice Chairman and CFO prior to the company's merger with NationsBank in 1998.

He also headed British bank Barclays PLC for a short time.

I spoke with O'Neill by phone earlier this year when he was in London. The interview was for a profile of fellow board member, Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons, who was in town as the Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.

O'Neill said then that he was enjoying his retirement but that there had been a several inquiries over the past few years. He indicated that he would only consider something if the conditions were ideal.

It's hardly an ideal situation at Bank of America, which received billions of dollars in federal bailout money and whose current CEO was ousted by shareholders.

But his track record indicates that he probably could pull off a successful turnaround at the company once known as "Mother Bank."

Tags: Bank of America Corp., Bank of Hawaii Corp., Mike O'Neill

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