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Who

Chuck Prince is the former CEO of Citigroup. He was forced into retirement in November 2007.

Backstory

Raised just a few miles from Disneyland where he harbored dreams of becoming a musician, Prince earned bachelor's, master's, and law degrees from USC before tacking on another law degree from Georgetown. By the late 1970s, he was working in the legal department at Commercial Credit, the struggling financial institution that Sandy Weill later used to assemble the financial conglomerate that would become Citigroup. For more than two decades, Prince worked by Weill's side, helping his mentor create a financial behemoth with the acquisitions of Primerica, Travelers, Salomon Brothers, a string of deals that culminated in 1998 with the $76 billion merger that formed Citigroup. In 2001, Weill appointed Prince chief operating officer, and relied on the former lawyer to guide the company through the ethics scandals of 2002 and 2003. (It was Prince who negotiated the bank's settlement with then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over alleged conflicts of interest.) When Weill was forced to step aside as the bank's chief executive in 2003, he turned over the CEO spot to Prince. He remained in charge until November 2007, when he was forced out amid billions in losses and a lagging stock price. He was replaced by Vikram Pandit.

Of note

Prince's tenure at Citi was a rocky one. A mild-mannered lawyer lacking Weill's leadership skills and charisma, Prince never inspired a great deal of confidence among Citi employees, and his revival strategies, which involved restructuring operations (much to Weill's chagrin), ultimately had little impact on the company's long-stagnant stock price. Then there were near-constant personnel shifts to contend with: Citi execs like Thomas Jones, Deryck Maughan, and Peter Scaturro were all ushered out the door shortly after Prince took over; Marge Magner and Robert Willumstad quit; Sallie Krawcheck was reassigned within the company twice; and wealth management head Todd Thomson was ousted in 2006 amid controversy. Even Prince's efforts in 2007 to beef up the firm's hedge fund unit raised red flags: Many thought Prince overpaid when he negotiated a deal to acquire Vikram Pandit's hedge fund Old Lane for more than $800 million. (The Wall Street Journal described the deal as a "reminder of the recent dysfunctionality under the red umbrella.")

But it was when Citi announced larger-than-expected write-downs in connection with exposure to subprime loans that Prince's fate was ultimately sealed. With the stock price plunging, the bank's biggest investors (such as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud) lost whatever faith they had in Prince and concluded it was time for him to go. After a transitional period during which Bob Rubin and Win Bischoff stepped in as Citi's acting chairman and CEO, the board named Vikram Pandit the bank's new chief executive in December 2007. Don't feel too bad for Prince, though: He received more than $68 million in cash and stock as part of his "retirement" package and now spends his days playing golf.

Personal

Prince's second wife is Margaret Wolff, a partner and M&A expert at Skadden, Arps. They have an apartment at 550 Park Avenue and a home in North Palm Beach, which they bought for $3.3 million in 2008.