John Shepard Reed (born February 7, 1939)[1] is the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He previously served as chairman and CEO of Citicorp, Citibank, and post-merger, Citigroup. He is the past chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's board of trustees.[2]

John Shepard Reed
Born (1939-02-07) February 7, 1939 (age 85)
Alma materWashington and Jefferson College, MIT Sloan School of Management
Occupation(s)Former CEO, Citigroup; Chairman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology board of trustees

Biography

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He was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Calvin Francis Reed and Virginia (Shepard) Reed. He was raised in Argentina and Brazil.[3] Reed earned his undergraduate degrees in a 3-2 program from Washington and Jefferson College (W&J) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), earning a B.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1961.[3] He was also a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity while at W&J and MIT. He served two years in the U.S. Army before returning to get his master's degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1965.[4]

Reed was heavily responsible for pushing for the adoption of the ATM around the US, and led Citicorp through a perilous period in the early 1990s. He was approached by Sandy Weill to merge with Travelers Group a year before the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (repealing the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933), allowing banking, insurance and securities companies to merge. The result was Citigroup, where Reed was later ousted in a management shakeup with Weill. Reed's departure was announced in a 28 February 2000 press release. In the aftermath of the November 2008 federal bailout of Citigroup, Reed was described as deeply skeptical of the "Wall Street financial engineering" that led to its collapse and "committed to consumer banking and sound commercial underwriting".[5]

Reed was asked to be interim CEO of the New York Stock Exchange after the Richard Grasso over-compensation scandal. He accepted the job for a $1 salary and set up new governance rules as the NYSE became a public corporation.

Reed was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[6] and the American Philosophical Society.[7]

Reed was the chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Corporation (board of trustees) from 2010 through 2014.[4][8]

He was a longtime member of the board of directors of Altria Group (and predecessor Phillip Morris Companies) through his retirement in 2008.[9]

He became member of the Board of Directors of CaixaBank in 2011.[10] In February 2016, he was elected president of the board of Boston Athenaeum.[1]

Reed has four children from his first marriage. In 1994, he married Cindy McCarthy, who was a flight attendant on Citicorp's corporate aircraft.[11]

Strategic planning

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Reed's expectation that his business managers be able to present their proposed business strategies in a few presentation slides without excessive use of data and documentation is referenced by business writers W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in a Harvard Business Review publication.[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b "John Reed Fast Facts". CNN. January 16, 2024.
  2. ^ "Corporation Member: John Shepard Reed '61". MIT Corporation website
  3. ^ a b "Reed, John". Education for a Lifetime. Washington & Jefferson College. Archived from the original on 2012-06-20. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
  4. ^ a b "John Reed nominated to chair MIT Corporation", MIT News, 12 April 2010
  5. ^ Pearlstein, Steven (2008-11-24). "Too Big to Succeed?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  6. ^ "John Shepard Reed". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
  7. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-12-06.
  8. ^ "Robert Millard '73 elected chair of the MIT Corporation: Corporation member and alumnus succeeds John Reed; other elections announced". MIT News. 5 June 2014. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  9. ^ ALTRIA GROUP, INC (Feb 28, 2008). "SEC Form 10K: 2007 Annual Report". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 25 May 2013. John S. Reed has elected to retire from the Altria Group, Inc. Board of Directors.
  10. ^ "John S. Reed". CaixaBank. Archived from the original on 2019-10-03.
  11. ^ O'Brien, Timothy L. (May 7, 1998). "Prince of the Citi; Reed Runs Citicorp With Brains and Pragmatic Skills". The New York Times.
  12. ^ Kim, W. Chan and Renée A. Mauborgne, Charting Your Company’s Future, Harvard Business Review, volume 80, number 6, June 2002, accessed on 27 August 2024

Further reading

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Business positions
Preceded by Chairman of Citicorp/Citigroup
1984–1998 (Citicorp)
1998–2000 (co-Chairman of Citigroup)
Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange
2003–2005
Succeeded by