Winfried Bischoff

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Sir Winfried Franz Wilhen Bischoff, often known as Win Bischoff (born 1941), is the Chairman of Citigroup and previously served as the interim CEO for Citigroup after Chuck Prince announced his retirement on November 4th, 2007^[1][2]. He was succeeded by Vikram Pandit on December 11th, 2007. He has joint British and German citizenship. ^[3].

He was born in Cologne, Germany and had an early education in Cologne and Düsseldorf. In 1955 he moved to Johannesburg where he received a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1961.

He joined in the International Department of Chase Manhattan Bank from 1962 to 1963.^[4]

He has been associated with Citi or portions of companies acquired by Citi almost his entire working life.

Bischoff joined J. Henry Schroder & Co. Limited in London in 1966 in its Company Finance Division. In 1971 he became Managing Director of Schroders Asia Limited in Hong Kong. He became Group Chief Executive of Schroders plc in December 1984 and Chairman of Schroders plc in May 1995.

All of Schroders was worth £30 Million when he took over. In 2000 the investment banking division of the company was acquired for £1.3 billion by Citi through its Smith Barney subsidiary.^[5] The new investment company was temporarily called Schroder Salomon Smith Barney. Bischoff joined Citi as Chairman of Citigroup Europe and was a member of The Operating Committee of Citigroup Inc., a position he was to hold until becoming Chairman in November 2007.

Bischoff's efforts to greatly increase Schroders influence earned him a knighthood in 2000 (in a class which also included Virgin founder Richard Branson).

He is a non-executive director at McGraw-Hill,Eli Lilly; Land Securities; Akbank and Prudential.

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