Sanford I. Weill

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Sanford I. Weill bigraphy, stories - American banker

Sanford I. Weill : biography

March 16, 1933 –

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. He served in those positions from 1998 until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively.

Philanthropies

Weill served as a Cornell Trustee for many years, and in 1998 he endowed Cornell’s medical school, now known as the Weill Cornell Medical College. As chairman of the Board of Overseers of Weill Cornell Medical College and an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees of Cornell University, Weill orchestrated a $400 million donation to Cornell, of which he and his wife personally contributed $250 million. In June 2007, he endowed the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell, housed in a new life science building named Weill Hall.

In May 2003, he received the Baruch Medal for Business and Civic Leadership, presented by Baruch College for his work in public education and his accomplishments in business.

He is currently the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Academy Foundation, a non-profit he founded in 1982. NAF supports career-themed academies in the areas of finance, hospitality and tourism, information technology and engineering in over 500 high schools across the United States.

He is also currently the Chairman of the Board of Carnegie Hall and is an avid champion of classical music in the United States. Since 1986, one of the three performance halls in Carnegie Hall has been named after Weill and his wife, Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall.

In September 2006, Joan and Sanford Weill Hall was dedicated at the University of Michigan. The building is home to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Weill donated $5 million towards the construction of the building and an additional $3 million to endow the position of the dean of the school.

Joan and Sanford Weill have been co-chairs, of the annual "Louis Marshall Award Dinner", for most of the past decade (2000–2010).

In 1990, during the period that the Weills were having marital disharmony, Joan suggested to her husband that they escape New York City for the wilderness of the Adirondacks.Adirondack Life, 1992 They purchased a tract of land and built a house close to Knollwood, the former summer home of Louis Marshall and his family overlooking Lower Saranac Lake. The Weills in the meantime returned to marital bliss, Joan endowing a library and student center at Paul Smith’s College. http://adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/530564/Joan-Weill-to-deliver-commencement-address-at-Paul-Smith-s-College.html?nav=5008http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSOC9jJHeJk

In 2010, the Weills bought a 362-acre estate in Sonoma County, California. In March 2011, the Weills announced a $12 million gift to Sonoma State University, providing the funds to complete the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center concert hall for a fall 2012 opening. The facility, inspired by Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, has been named the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Hall. "We love to be involved in the communities where we spend time," Sandy Weill commented to an interviewer.

In 2012, Weill was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Early life

Weill was born in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, to two Polish-Jewish immigrants. He attended P.S. 200 in Bensonhurst. He also attended Peekskill Military Academy in Peekskill, New York, then enrolled at Cornell University where he was active in the Air Force ROTC and the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. Weill received a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Cornell in 1955.

Weill’s middle initial of "I" is not an abbreviation for anything. Weill said:

Weill married his wife, the former Joan Mosher, on June 20, 1955. The couple live in Greenwich, Connecticut. They have two adult children, Marc Weill and Jessica Weill Bibliowicz, and four grandchildren.

Business career