Michael Biondi, an active trustee of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association since 1998, died unexpectedly Tuesday night at the age of 50.
MICHAEL BIONDI, an active trustee of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association since 1998, died unexpectedly Tuesday night at the age of 50.
    USSA President Bill Marolt said Biondi’s leadership played a key role in the resurgence of the New York Ski and Snowboard Ball over the past decade. That event brings in more than $1 million each year to support USSA’s young athletes. Biondi was proud of the role he played as a member of our New York committee and as a former chairman, Marolt said.
    “Michael was a very successful businessman. But his engagement with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team Foundation was special to him,” Marolt said. “He always took time to help support our team and was very genuine in his passion for our cause. I always enjoyed working with him. His presence will be missed, but his contributions to support our organization will live on.”
    Biondi was a veteran corporate takeover adviser who most recently served as Lazard Ltd.’s co-chairman of investment banking. Bloomberg News reported that Biondi died at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, according to a memo distributed to Lazard employees by Bruce Wasserstein, the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer.
    “Mike was one of the good guys and all of our lives are diminished without him,” Wasserstein said in the memo. He didn’t state the cause of death.    
    Biondi attended Dartmouth College and developed a love for skiing there. The Biondi family had a home in the Vail Valley and often skied there.
    According to the Bloomberg report, Biondi and Wasserstein worked together in the 1980s  in mergers and acquisitions at First Boston, now part of Credit Suisse Group. Biondi was among the group of bankers who left First Boston to found Wasserstein Perella & Co. in 1988. He was CEO of the New York-based firm before its sale to Germany’s Dresdner Bank AG in 2000. In 2003, Biondi joined Wasserstein at Lazard.
    “Mike always called it the way he saw it,” said Joseph Perella, now chairman of Perella Weinberg Partners LP in New York. “He was the highest-quality person you could hope to work with and know.”
     Biondi and Wasserstein advised billionaire investor Carl Icahn in his effort to boost Time Warner Inc.’s share price by breaking up the company. In January 2006, Icahn also recruited Biondi’s brother, former Viacom Inc. CEO Frank Biondi, as a successor to Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons under a plan that Icahn and Lazard presented to shareholders. The plan didn’t win enough investor support and Parsons remained in charge.
    Before First Boston, Biondi was a lawyer with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. He studied at Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he got a law degree and a master’s in business administration.
    Biondi is survived by his wife, Cynthia; four sons, Michael Jr., James, William, and Cameron; and two brothers, Frank and Robert.

MICHAEL BIONDI SERVICES
Visitation
Thursday, Nov. 15
5-8 p.m.
Gallagher’s Funeral Home
31 Arch Street
Greenwich, Connecticut
203-869-1513
 
Funeral Services
Friday, Nov. 16
11 a.m.
St. Catherine’s Church
4 Riverside Avenue
Riverside, Connecticut  06878
203-637-2710