JOHN HEIMANN

HEIMANN--John G., whose three years in the Gubernatorial administration of Hugh Carey during New York's financial crisis in the mid-1970s and four years as the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency during the Carter administration, defined his generation's commitment to public service, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan, NY. He was 94. His death was confirmed by his wife, Maria-Cristina Anzola Heimann. Mr. Heimann was born in New York City on April 1, 1929, to Sydney and Dorothy Baright Heimann. His mother died in 1934 when he was five and his father, a lawyer and member of the New York Bar Association, died ten years later. After extensive legal wrangling, he and his younger brother Richard were made "wards of the court" and sent to New York Military Academy. This shaped the driven and self- determined man he would become. He worked his way through Syracuse University and received a BA in Economics in 1950. After being drafted into the Army during the Korean War, Mr. Heimann returned to New York to begin his career in Finance at Smith Barney and Company, initially as a management trainee and then as the creator of Smith Barney's pension fund business. During this time he also served as Special Secretary to the Commissioner of Housing and Urban Development, Bob Weaver. This was his first experience in the public sector and strongly influenced his career. In 1967 Lionel Pincus asked Mr. Heimann to join his newly created firm, E.M. Warburg Pincus & Co. as a founding partner where he worked as a Senior Vice President and Director. In 1975, at the height of New York City's Financial crisis, he became the Superintendent of Banks for New York State. Heimann worked closely with the senior members of the Carey administration and the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) to help the city back to solvency. As it became apparent that the State's housing program was at the center of the financial morass, Governor Carey asked Heimann to lead the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal as the Commissioner for two years. As a result of his Wall Street credentials and experience in the banking sector, Mr. Heimann was appointed the U.S Comptroller of the Currency under President Carter. His first challenge as Comptroller was to investigate the head of OMB, Bert Lance, who also happened to be one of the President's closest friends. This was no small task and put Mr. Heimann in the unenviable position of either alienating the White House or jeopardizing his credibility in Congress - he chose the former. In the early months of the Reagan administration Mr. Heimann returned to Wall Street as Deputy Chairman of Warburg, Paribas, Becker Incorporated and, through acquisition, to Merrill Lynch as a Vice Chairman of Capital Markets, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Merrill Lynch Europe/Middle East, and Chairman, Global Financial Institutions Group. Upon leaving Merrill Lynch in 1999, Mr. Heimann went on to become the Founding Chairman of the Financial Stability Institute at the Bank for International Settlements and a Senior Advisor to the Board of AIB Bank Republic of Ireland. Mr. Heimann was active in a broad range of philanthropies and served on numerous boards, including: The Group of Thirty (Member), The Federal Reserve Bank of New York International Capital Advisory Committee (Member), Chairman, 2020 Andean Commission of the Council of Foreign Relations, the Center for the Study of Financial Innovation, the International Advisory Board of Columbia University, The Nasher Sculpture Center and the French American Foundation. He also received numerous awards such as the Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Pacesetter Award from the National Association of Bank Women, and most notably, the Alexander Hamilton Award from the Department of the Treasury. In addition to his wife, Mr. Heimann is survived by a son, Joshua and his wife Karen Olin and a daughter, Eliza and her husband Jon Greenberg as well as his two stepchildren, Ariana Neumann, her husband Andrew Rodger and Ignacio Pinilla and his wife Grace Colangelo as well as nine grandchildren (Alexandra, Carson, Rachel, Jacob, Isabel, Sebastian, Eloise, Maria- Teresa and Kai). Mr. Heimann's first wife, Margaret Fechheimer Heimann, died in 2007. A private service will be held at St. James Church, 865 Madison Avenue, New York, NY on Wednesday, February 7, 2024 at 2:30pm. Donations in his memory may be made to St. James Church, 865 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10021.