Background and career
Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill (; born March 16, 1933) is an American banker, financier, and philanthropist. He is a former chief executive and chairman of Citigroup, from 1998 to October 2003, and April 2006, respectively.
Weill was born in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York City, to Polish Jewish immigrants, Etta (Kalika) and Max Weill. He attended P.S. 200 of the New York City Public Schools system for elementary school in his local neighborhood of Bensonhurst. He also attended Peekskill Military Academy in Peekskill, New York of Upstate New York, and then enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he was active in the U.S. Air Force ROTC and Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. In 1955, Weill graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Cornell. Weill's middle initial of "I" is not an abbreviation for anything. In 2002, he said:
My mother wanted to name me after somebody whose name started with an "I", but she couldn't think of a name she liked. So she gave me the initial with the idea that after I was 21 I could choose whatever middle name I wanted.
In 1955, shortly after graduating from Cornell, Weill began his first job on Wall Street, as a runner for Bear Stearns. In 1956, he became a licensed broker at Bear Stearns. Rather than making phone calls or personal visits to solicit clients, Weill found he was far more comfortable sitting at his desk, poring through companies' financial statements and disclosures made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. For weeks his only client was his mother, Etta, until his later to be wife, Joan, persuaded an ex-boyfriend to open a brokerage account.
While working at Bear Stearns, Weill was a neighbor of Arthur L. Carter who was working at Lehman Brothers. Together with Roger Berlind and Peter Potoma, they formed Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill in May 1960. In 1962 the firm became Carter, Berlind & Weill after the New York Stock Exchange brought disciplinary proceedings against Potoma. In 1968, with the departure of Arthur Carter, the firm was renamed Cogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt (Marshall Cogan, Arthur Levitt), or CBWL jokingly referred to on Wall Street as "Corned Beef With Lettuce". Weill was the firm's chairman from 1965 to 1984, a period in which it completed over 15 acquisitions to become the country's second-largest securities brokerage firm. The company became CBWL-Hayden, Stone, Inc. in 1970; Hayden Stone, Inc. in 1972; Shearson Hayden Stone in 1974, when it merged with Shearson Hammill & Co.; and Shearson Loeb Rhoades in 1979, when it merged with Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Co. With capital totaling $250 million, Shearson Loeb Rhoades trailed only Merrill Lynch as the largest securities broker.
In 1981, Weill sold Shearson Loeb Rhoades to American Express for about $915 million in stock. In 1982, he founded the National Academy Foundation with the Academy of Finance to educate high school students. Weill began as president of American Express Co. in 1983 and as chairman and CEO of American Express's insurance subsidiary, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, in 1984. Weill was succeeded by his protégé, Peter A. Cohen, who became the youngest head of a Wall Street firm. While at American Express, Weill began grooming his newest protégé, Jamie Dimon, the future CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
