Reed, John Shepard

Reed, John Shepard (1939–  ) banker; born in Chicago. He was raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his father worked as an Armour Company executive. After overcoming dyslexia, which caused him problems in school as a child, he earned engineering and management degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined Citicorp in 1965 and rose rapidly; he became a senior vice-president in 1969, and by helping to pioneer the development of, among other things, automatic teller machines, he directed Citicorp's successful venture into commercial banking in the 1970s. He became chairman and chief executive officer of Citicorp in 1984. In the late 1980s he led Citicorp through a period of retrenchment, scaling back peripheral operations and selling off real estate in an effort to avoid financial trouble.