Profile: Louis Susman, Obama's pick for ambassador to the UK
Low-key Chicago investment banker known as the 'vacuum cleaner' for his ability to suck up cash for Democrats
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Nicknamed the "vacuum cleaner" for his ability to Hoover up cash for Democratic politicians, Louis Susman is a low-key veteran Chicago investment banker known for possessing one of the fattest contact books in the mid-west.
Before rattling the tin for Barack Obama, Susman generated $244m (£156m) as national finance director of John Kerry's presidential bid and he played a key fund-raising role for previous White House hopefuls including Bill Bradley, Dick Gephart and Edward Kennedy. "I don't think anyone enjoys raising money, but for some reason I seem to have a knack for how to do it," he once told the Chicago Tribune.
Susman, 71, lives with his wife, Margie, in a house on Chicago's so-called "gold coast" along the shore of Lake Michigan and the couple have a holiday home in Nantucket, Massachusetts, just across the water from the Kennedy family's Cape Cod compound.
He retired in February as vice chairman of global markets at struggling Citigroup, prior to which he was head of Salomon Brothers' Chicago office, advising on multi-million dollar deals including retailer Dayton Hudson's purchase of the department store operator Marshall Field and the Korean group LG's takeover of Zenith Electronics.
His early career was as a lawyer in his native St Louis, where he served as counsel for the Budweiser beer firm Anheuser-Busch and acted as a pallbearer at the funeral of the brewer's billionaire magnate Gussie Busch, who died in 1989.
Susman's foreign policy credentials are hazy. He spent three years, between 1988 and 1991, on the US state department's advisory commission on public diplomacy - a bipartisan panel appointed by the President to advise on America's overseas policies. He is actively involved in a think-tank, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which has hosted events with luminaries including Tony Blair, Bernard-Henri Levy and Al Gore.
"Lou is a very respected figure in this town," said the council's president, Marshall Bouton. "He's a very thoughtful and engaged person who has a strong sense of commitment to the community and to our country."
In the past, Susman has run his political money-raising operation from the 87th floor of America's tallest building, the Sears Tower in Chicago.
A baseball enthusiast, Susman is a former director of the St Louis Cardinals but such is his diplomacy in generating donations that he refuses to say who he backs out of Chicago's keen rivals - the Cubs and the White Sox, telling one interviewer: "As a fundraiser, I don't want someone getting mad at me."
A long-standing friend, Chicago businessman Andy McKenna, says Susman has spent a good deal of time in London through business travel. McKenna says: "He's reasonably direct but on the other hand, he's very respectful of differing points of view. When he reaches a view, you can be sure it's always well thought out."
Susman is a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago and a donor to various local hospitals. He has two children, Sally and William, and at least three grandchildren.