Craig Schiffer (August 25, 1956 – December 23, 2014) was the former

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the Americas of Dresdner Kleinwort, based in New York, from 2003 to 2006. (In September 2009, after Dresdner Kleinwort was merged into

Commerzbank Commerzbank AG () is a major German bank operating as a universal bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. In the 2019 financial year, the bank was the second largest in Germany by the total value of its balance sheet. Founded in 1870 in Hambur ...

, Commerzbank decided to abandon use of the Dresdner Kleinwort name, although pending legal actions resulting from disputed bonus payments continue to keep the bank in the spotlight.) In February 2009, Schiffer founded Sevara Partners LLC, a boutique financial advisory firm based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

which serves clients in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. Schiffer has been a resident of

Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...

Career

Schiffer joined Dresdner Kleinwort in London in 2001 as a managing director and executive committee member in the Global Debt business. Shortly after, he moved to the New York office to be Head of Capital Markets, North America, becoming Chief Executive in early 2003. Under his tenure, he successfully restructured the New York and Latin American businesses from a U.S. $300 million loss in 2002 to a net operating profit of almost U.S. $300 million (on a U.S. $600 million revenue base in 2006). Craig Schiffer oversaw both the continuing businesses at Dresdner Kleinwort and the Institutional Restructuring Unit, Dresdner's $9 billion “bad bank” in North America. Prior to Dresdner Kleinwort, Schiffer headed Nomura International’s European Fixed Income Division, overseeing all of the capital markets and derivative businesses. At Nomura, he led the business to bottom line profitability for the first time ever in fiscal year 1999–2000. Schiffer joined Nomura in August 1997 where he was originally responsible for restructuring Nomura's U.S. derivatives business, implementing robust risk management and achieving operating profitability. He then took on additional responsibility for Nomura's proprietary businesses in

, which grew considerably under his tenure. He was a member of the European Management Board at Nomura International, responsible for strategy and the daily operations of the European businesses. Prior to

Nomura Nomura (written: 野村 "field village" or 埜村 "wilderness village") is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Don Nomura (born 1957), Japanese-American baseball agent * Katsuhiro Nomura, Japanese voice actor, includi ...

, Schiffer spent eighteen and a half years at

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Gol ...

. He served in a variety of management roles in both

Fixed Income Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the prin ...

and Equities. As the Global Head of Equity Derivatives, Schiffer oversaw operations and concentrated on building the business, and before that, Schiffer was the Global Head of Fixed Income Derivatives (1992–1994), where he restructured and took the fixed income derivatives business from a marginal revenue producer and transformed it into one of the most profitable businesses at

Sevara Partners LLC

Along with Neil Winward, most recently a member of Dresdner Kleinwort’s Executive Committee in New York until he left in December 2006, Schiffer started Sevara Partners LLC, a boutique investment bank. Neil Winward left to join EA Markets in October, 2012. In mid-January, 2013, the broker-dealer, Sevara Capital Markets, was sold to a unit of KKR & Co. and Schiffer ceased to be registered with

FINRA The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is a private American corporation that acts as a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets. FINRA is the successor to the National Associati ...

Death

Schiffer was killed in an avalanche while skiing in Grenoble,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, on December 23, 2014.Craig Schiffer, Ex-Lehman Executive, Dies in Avalanche at 58
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References

External links

Sevara Partners LLC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schiffer, Craig American bankers American chief executives of financial services companies 1956 births 2014 deaths People from Summit, New Jersey Natural disaster deaths in France Deaths in avalanches