Tearing Down the Walls: How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of the Financial World. . .and Then Nearly Lost It All (Wall Street Journal Book)

by Monica Langley (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2004

  $23.39

  He is one of the world's most accomplished figures of modern finance. As chairman and chief executive officer of Citigroup, Sanford Sandy Weill has become an American legend, a banking visionary whose innovativeness, opportunism, and even fear drove him from the lowliest jobs on Wall Street to its most commanding heights. In this unprecedented biography, acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter Monica Langley provides a compelling account of Weill's rise to power. What emerges is a portrait of a man who is as vital and as volatile as the market itself.
  Tearing Down the Walls tells the riveting inside story of how a Jewish boy from Brooklyn's back alleys overcame incredible odds and deep-seated prejudices to transform the financial-services industry as we know it today.
  Using nearly five hundred firsthand interviews with key players in Weill's life and career -- including Weill himself -- Langley brilliantly chronicles not only his success and scandals but also the shadows of his hidden self: his father's abandonment and his loving marriage; his tyrannical rages as well as his tearful regrets; his fierce sense of loyalty and his ruthless elimination of potential rivals. By highlighting in new and startling detail one man's life in a narrative as richly textured and compelling as a novel, Tearing Down the Walls provides the historical context of the dramatic changes not only in business but also in American society in the last half century.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.25

  The riveting inside story of how a rough-edged kid from Brooklyn became a billionaire, shaped the future of financial services around the world and built the world's largest financial empire. Sandford 'Sandy' Weill is the most important player in today's financial world. He has swallowed up one major company after another, from Smith Barney to Travelers to Salomon Brothers and, his ultimate triumph, control of Citigroup - the world's largest financial empire. Yet the Weill story is much more than a business chronicle. It's the enthralling account of a man who made it, lost it, then made it a again. A man who's determination and innovation helped him overcome youthful slights and mid-life failure and to take on the financial titans of our time. In TEARING DOWN THE WALLS, lawyer and journalist Monica Langley reveals the unorthodox management style and surprisingly simple principles that have contributed to Weill's success. By highlighting in new and startling detail one man's life, TEARING DOWN THE WALLS provides the historical context not only of the dramatic changes in business, but also American society in the last half century.