By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com

As a youngster, Mike Cklamovski was really into fútbol. Not football ... fútbol. You know, that international team sport more commonly known in the states as soccer?

Throughout his elementary school student days and during most of the way through his career at Lyons Township High School in suburban Chicago, Cklamovski excelled, primarily as a goalkeeper. His advanced talent level, in fact, earned him a scholarship offer from Vanderbilt University. He was all set to continue his career in Nashville, but a decision by the Commodores' athletic department to drop men's soccer in December of Cklamovski's senior year placed a roadblock in that path.

"It was a bit of a shock," he said.

Fortunately, a few months earlier in 2005, some of Cklamovski's buddies had talked him into joining the Lyons Township football team, serving as the Lions' placekicker and punter.

"It was a blast," he said. "I had a ton of fun and it was a totally different experience."

That same year, Cklamovski and a handful of others got a unique tutoring opportunity in the art of placekicking from his distant cousin—former Ohio State star Vlade Janakievski. Janakievski, a Buckeye record-holder and a member of OSU's All-Century Team, had lived in the same village in Macedonia as Cklamovski's grandparents.

"I called Vlade and he's like, 'Hey, why don't come to Columbus and we'll mess around," Cklamovski said. "You have to remember that, at this point, I'd only kicked in 10 high school games. I didn't consider myself to be a kicker in any way. I walked away from that thinking 'these guys are really good, but I'm not bad.' It gave me a ton of confidence."

A few weeks later, he received a call from then Fighting Illini football coach Ron Zook, who extended an invitation to participate at the University of Illinois.

"I went down to Champaign the day after I graduated from high school and it was probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me," Cklamovski said.

On September 2^nd, 2006, he attended his very first college football game—Illinois versus Eastern Illinois—and handled kickoff duties.

"I hadn't really honed in on technique or the diligence that it took to be an elite kicker," he said. "I just liked kicking the ball as far as I could."

Cklamovski graduated one semester ahead of schedule from the U of I with two degrees, one in political science and one in communications. Academically, he was targeting law school.  His first career job was as a litigator for a real estate firm.

"I was in court every day," he said. "There's so much that you learn when bullets are flying that you would never learn in a classroom. I started to think, this is so combative every day and I have voicemails from other attorneys screaming at me. I was like, uh, I'm not sure that I want to be a litigator. So I started tapping back into this network that I'd been diligently creating. I'd meet with someone and they'd introduce me to three other people. Eventually, the banking industry entered Cklamovski's realm, through a set-up at U.S. Trust called the Private Client Advisor Development Program.

"That experience was incredible," he said. "It exposed me to a whole new world and gave me a foundational skillset. Most of the folks sitting across from me were double my age, far more experienced than me. I was just a sponge, soaking up their knowledge. A couple of years later, CIBC, a big Canadian bank, called me and inquired about my interest in a leadership role."

After a year as managing director in Chicago, bank administrators approached Cklamovski again, this time about moving to the San Francisco Bay area to become CIBC's West Regional Market Manager.

In September of 2022, he became President of Northern California Trust Corporation, overseeing the firm's high-growth business across the Bay area.

Still firmly connected to his family's ancestral roots, Cklamovski also serves as chair of an international, independent, non-political non-profit called Macedonia 2025. Its purpose is to drive sustainable economic growth that will improve opportunities for the European country's citizens, companies and foreign investors.

"Many of the most interesting and successful Macedonians on earth are part of it," he said. "It's been a wonderful tool for me."

Cklamovski, whose family includes his wife Cristina and young sons Remi and Oliver, says that his experience at the University of Illinois provided him with wisdom about the importance of persistence and the development of a work ethic.

"One of the things that Illinois taught me, especially from an athletic standpoint, is that there are many, many talented people ... more talented and smarter than me," he said. "Any successes I've had so far have come down to having a real rigor and routine and discipline in the things that we pursue. Frankly, Illinois was instrumental in that for me. It was a real expansion of my world view."