Sanford I. Weill
Chairman Emeritus
Citigroup
Sanford I. Weill is Chairman Emeritus of Citigroup, the diversified global financial services company formed in 1998 through the merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group. Mr. Weill retired as CEO of Citigroup on October 1, 2003, and served as Chairman until April 18, 2006.
Long a proponent of education, Mr. Weill instituted a joint public-private sector partnership with the New York City Board of Education in 1980 that created the Academy of Finance, to position high school students for careers in financial services. He serves as founder and Chairman of the National Academy Foundation (NAF), which oversees more than 500 career-themed Academies in 40 states, as well as the District of Columbia. In addition to the Academy of Finance, NAF has Academies of Hospitality and Tourism and Information Technology, and it just recently launched an Academy of Engineering. Ninety percent of NAF’s students graduate, with 80 percent going on to post-secondary education–often as the first in their families to attend college.
Mr. Weill is Chairman of the Board of Overseers for The Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University, having joined the board in 1982 and becoming chair in 1996. Weill Cornell Medical College established the first American medical school overseas in Doha, Qatar, in 2001. The standards and course material taught by Weill Cornell Medical College faculty in Qatar are identical to those of the main campus in New York. Weill Cornell Medical College’s inaugural class in Qatar graduated on May 8, 2008.
The 1997 recipient of the New York State Governor’s Art Award, Mr. Weill has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall since 1991. He previously served as Co-Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Campaign that raised a record $60 million in one evening for the Hall’s restoration.
The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy, Mr. Weill's book, is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller.
Mr. Weill, who was born on March 16, 1933, is a graduate of Cornell University. He and his wife, Joan, have been married for 53 years. They have two children and four grandchildren.
Book blurbs from "The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy" by Sandy Weill and Judah Kraushaar
"I’ve been friends with Sandy Weill for nearly thirty years, and this book is vintage Sandy: at every turn it’s spirited, passionate, and brutally honest.†(U.S. President Gerald R. Ford)
"A consummate innovator, Sandy Weill has written a memoir which uniquely brings to life the dramatic evolution of the modern financial services industry." (Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board)
"The Real Deal doesn't mince words on what it takes to be successful in business and life. Sandy's drive and hard-earned lessons resonate throughout this fascinating book." (Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor)
"Sandy Weill reinvented Wall Street, redefined banking and reshaped the world of financial services. He is a visionary who changed the world of business for all of us, and in doing so became that rarest of all breeds—a legend in his own time." (Ken Chenault, Chairman and CEO, American Express)
Excerpts from "The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy" that mention Qatar:
Page 463: At Weill Cornell, we had made important strides in advancing medical science and working on future health care delivery. I was thrilled by what we had accomplished promoting education around the world especially in places like Qatar and Tanzania.
In Doha, we established the first American medical school outside the United States in cooperation with Qatar’s emir and sheika. The school would graduate over fifty students each year from across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia all under Cornell University’s rigorous academic standards. Opening the school in the Middle East and in the shadow of the Iraq War was gratifying since we were doing one of the only positive things in the region at a very complex and discouraging time.
Page 484: Thanks to its innovative expansion in Qatar, where Weill Cornell has opened the first fully accredited American medical school outside the United States, our school has begun to globalize and has pushed into a region of the world that desperately needs to better educate its youth.