Leonard Abess

Leonard Abess (1949-) is a United States banker who sold his own company, City National Bank of Florida for $945 million and gave his staff a bonus. He shared $60 million between them.¹ Abess’ father co-founded City National Bank of Florida in 1946. Abess graduated from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania . He started his career at the bank in its print shop. In 1984, Abess at age 35 became one of the youngest chairmen of a bank in the United States when he borrowed $21 million to purchase a majority interest in City National Bank from investors who lost it in bankruptcy court due to fraud. Abess rebuilt the business from having $400 million in assets to $2.75 billion at the time of the sale. In November 2008, Abess sold his 83 percent share of the bank the Caja Madrid banking group for $927 million and shared $60 million of the proceeds with 399 current staff members and 72 former employees. to On February 24, 2009, President Barack Obama praised Abess in his State of the Union Address and invited Abess and another bank employee to be his guest at the speech. Abess serves as a Trustee of the University of Miami and in 2006 donated $5 million to establish the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, to foster innovative interdisciplinary approaches to environmental management and decision-making. Abess is also chair of the University of Miami's finance committee and a member of the executive, investment and medical affairs committees. He also serves as a trustee of Fairchild Tropical Garden and of The Nature Conservancy /Florida Chapter and a former trustee of the Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts Abess and his wife not only funded UM's environmental policy center, but they also founded a Floating Research Station in the Brazilian Amazon and the Abess Center for Environmental Studies at Miami Country Day School . In 2007, the Miami Chamber of Commerce honored Abess and his wife Jayne with their "Sand in My Shoes Award." In 2006, the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce gave him its "Doc Baker Lifetime Achievement Award." Leonard Abess is a member of the board of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and former chairman of the board of Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he remains a founder and trustee. He is also former chairman of the Mount Sinai finance committee, audit committee and nominating committee and former treasurer of the medical center's board of trustees. Norfolk Examiner . : |access-date= requires |url= ( help ) "Banker hands out $60M to workers" .²