In a career that has spanned more than three decades and nearly every aspect of financial services, Marc Weill has served in key roles at several top firms, including Chief Investment Officer at Citigroup. Weill is currently a Senior Advisor at Two Sigma Ventures where he helps source and evaluate investment opportunities while providing strategic support to their portfolio companies. He is fascinated by the intersection of health and financial wellness and the tech solutions created by dynamic founders. Weill holds an MBA in Finance and Accounting from Columbia University and a BA in Economics and Business from Vanderbilt.
Weill began his career interning under future Fed Chairman Dr. Alan Greenspan while getting his dual undergraduate degrees in 1978. Upon graduating with his MBA in 1980, Weill went to work under Dwight Faulkner in the management training program of Shearson Lehman Brothers, a unit of American Express.
In 1982, Weill moved to S.B. Lewis as a Risk Arb. trader but returned to Shearson in 1983 to join the Asset Management Group where he quickly established himself as an adept financial advisor, overseeing 500 retail and institutional clients, earning Chairman’s Club status with his exceptional performance. In 1989 he departed Shearson to join Smith Barney as Vice President of the firm’s Restructuring Group, where he brought in some of the most lucrative bankruptcy and restructuring deals.
THe road to citigroup
Weill’s rapid rise in the financial industry continued in 1992, when he became Chief Investment Officer and Executive Vice President of Primerica, managing $2 billion dollars of company assets with a staff of three.
After the Travelers merger in 1994, Weill was named Chief Investment Officer overseeing $30+ billion dollars in assets. Over the next six years, which included mergers with Solomon Brothers and Citibank, the assets grew to over $130 billion, which generated over $7 billion in revenue, and an expansion of staff from 250 to over 600 employees. In 1997, Weill was promoted to Senior Executive Vice President and named to Travelers/Citigroup’s influential 16-member Management Committee, comprised of the company’s most senior officers.
Weill’s responsibilities included managing the assets of insurance, pension fund and wealth management business lines. He employed a range of investment strategies spanning all global asset classes, both public and private, including alternative investments such as timber, trade finance and venture capital, emerging economies debt, Brady bonds, distressed debt, commercial paper, foreign exchanges, hedge funds and fund of funds, leveraged fixed income, municipal bonds, structured products and real estate. Weill also established a $30-billion Alternative Investment Group that incubated funds including Tishman Speyer Realty Fund, Tribeca Investments, Greenwich Street Capital Partners, Rivkin Venture Capital Fund, a Brazilian infrastructure fund, and an Israeli technology venture capital fund. Additionally, he was responsible for Rosenberg Capital Management and was named to the Investment Committee of Citibank Venture Capital. Weill was regarded as a top money manager before he retired in 2000.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
At the beginning of the new millennium, Weill traded in his powerful corporate position at Citigroup Investments for the freedom of entrepreneurship and the flexibility to pursue his own unique interests, both within and outside the financial industry. From 2001 to 2003 he served as Co-Founder and Chairman of WST Partners, a fund-of-funds investment firm that outperformed the S&P by 1,000 basis points during his tenure. Simultaneously, Weill co-founded Fine Minerals International, drawing on his extensive knowledge in geology and minerals and mastery of lapidary arts to pursue new mineral discoveries globally. In addition to acquiring, preparing and selling rare minerals from mines around the world, Weill invested in a sustainable emerald mine in Brazil and donated rare minerals to the Museum of Natural History in New York.
In 2004 he also founded City Light Capital Investment, an impact investing venture capital firm specializing in start-up and early-stage enterprises that positively impact society. He served as Chairman of City Light through 2009, overseeing all aspects of investing in a variety of innovative and progressive products and solutions. Companies he supported pioneered new approaches to gunshot-detection systems and other surveillance technologies that combat inner-city crime and streamlining of first-responder systems and electronic health records. City Light also supported several sustainable enterprises and projects in Latin America.
career investor / COLLECTOR
As a career investor, Weill continued to keep his finger on the pulse of companies with interesting growth potential. Concurrently, his dedication to researching and acquiring rare gem and mineral specimens of the highest caliber allowed him to assemble one of the world’s finest private collections—an achievement that has been recognized with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show’s Paul Desautels Trophy, the most prestigious honor in the field of mineral collection.
BOARDS
Weill supports several educational enrichment and experiences as a board member for non-for-profit organizations. He serves on the Leadership Committee of the Weill Neurohub, which brings together world-class researchers and clinicians at three premier West Coast research institutions to speed the development of new treatments for neurological and psychiatric diseases. The Neurohub is a new program at the University of California San Francisco’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences, dedicated to solving some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
He is a board member of The National Academy of Finance (NAF), which solves some of the biggest challenges in high schools and the economy by bringing education, business, and community leaders together to transform the high school experience. Weill is on the Regional Advisory Board of NFTE, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which provides business training and education programs for low-income middle and high school students. He served for many years on the board of the Fresh Air Fund, which provides New York inner-city, low-income children with access to summer camps and outdoor activities.
MENTORSHIP
Weill is passionate about providing financial education and banking services for the underserved both in the United States and worldwide. Twenty-five percent of U.S. households are underbanked, and throughout the world millions suffer from a lack of affordable access to banking and financial solutions. Drawing on his extensive financial expertise, he is committed to developing innovative financial education solutions that improve the quality of people’s lives and expand their opportunities. Recognizing the potential for FinTech to address these issues, he serves as a mentor for many startup accelerators such as Creative Destructive Lab (CDL), NYU’s Endless Frontier Labs (EFL), Entrepreneurs Roundtable (ERA), The Barclays Accelerator powered by Techstars, Startupbootcamp, and Columbia University’s Almaworks.
FINTECH / HEALTHTECH
In 2014, Weill joined Two Sigma Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund investing in transformative companies, harnessing information growth and computing power to change the world. Weill continues to focus on investment opportunities in financial, digital and health technologies and provides strategic support for Two Sigma’s venture capital fund’s portfolio companies.
Weill resides in New York and is married with three children.