Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill '55 makes a surprise recruiting visit

Sandy Weill '55, right, co-chairman and CEO of Citigroup, speaks with Cornell senior and computer science major Wiliam Peng during Weill's campus recruitment visit for the investment company Salomon Smith Barney (a member of Citigroup) Oct. 4 in the Statler Hotel. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

Wall Street wunderkind Sandy Weill, a Cornell alumnus and trustee emeritus, made a surprise appearance on campus recently to recruit for Salomon Smith Barney, the investment group whose parent company, Citigroup, is headed by Weill and co-chairman and CEO John Reed.

Weill graduated from Cornell in 1955 and went on to build two financial service giants, Shearson Loeb Rhoades, which sold for almost $1 billion in 1984, and Commercial Credit, which acquired Smith Barney and Salomon Brothers, merged with Travelers Corp., then joined forces with Citicorp last year in one of the most profitable mergers of the century. The combined firm of Citigroup is worth an estimated $150 billion.

"This just proves you don't need a graduate degree," joked Weill to about 60 seniors in a Statler Hotel reception room Oct. 4. He also confessed that when he was a job-seeking senior, he was turned down by both Merrill Lynch and Harris Upham -- the latter a Smith Barney predecessor.

Weill showed a humorous film clip on the day-to-day struggles and triumphs of a handful of attractive recent hires at Salomon Smith Barney. He boasted that his firm has "the best training program, bar none." His colleague at Salomon Smith Barney, Christina Mohr, also gave a David Letterman-style, top-10 reasons for joining the company -- among them a promise of no stupid interview questions and the claim that "our chairman is cooler than theirs."

"He was relaxed and showed the more human side of the business," said Joshua Castillo, a School of Hotel Administration senior from Bayard, N.M., who hopes to go into investment banking and corporate finance. Most of the competing firms are all business, Castillo related. And none send their CEOs on recruiting trips.

Salomon Smith Barney will likely hire 12 Cornell graduates this year, up from eight last year but still highly competitive. "We want to hire as many exceptional Cornell students as we can," said Mohr.

Ayesha Ahmed, a senior government major from Pittsburgh whose parents are Japanese, was heartened to hear Weill relate that Salomon Smith Barney is making inroads in the Far East and "has better opportunities in Japan than any other company." She hoped her course work in the political economy of Japan and comparative economics would give her an advantage when the firm makes its hiring decisions.

Ears seem to perk up when Weill related that all Salomon Smith Barney employees are co-owners of the firm who may purchase its stock at a 25 percent discount. Clearly the students were attracted to the earnings potential that a career in financial services seems to promise.

After hearing Weill, Edwin Arteaga, a senior from Brooklyn, N.Y., majoring in biochemistry, said, "I was initially interested in med school, but I'm now considering a career in investment banking. I was really impressed [by Weill], and I like the idea of expanding my knowledge and ideas in other areas."