Sonja kohn where is she

Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. The Kohns founded a small brokerage firm, the Eurovaleur Inc. In s, they moved back to Vienna. There, she cooperated with Gerhard Randa of Bank Austria.

The Bank Medici was relaunched in as an Aktiengesellschaft. Sonja is shareholder of 75 percent and is head of the bank's supervising board. People who know Kohn and those investigating her agree on one point: while she is a charming and extremely hardworking saleswoman, her most important distinguishing characteristic—indeed, her No.

With offices across the street from the opera house in Vienna and three blocks from La Scala in Milan, Kohn cultivated the image of a woman of culture, and of political and economic power. She promoted herself as "Austria's woman on Wall Street"—cachet that privately included her offer of entree to Bernie.

One former employee recalls, "She would tell people she had Bernie's private mobile number. Madoff's continental ambassador was born in Austria in to a Jewish family named Blau. In Sonja Blau married Erwin Kohn. Together, according to the bankruptcy trustee's suit, they ran an import-export business in Austria for a while before moving the business to Milan in the s. In the Kohns emigrated to the U. Financial-industry records show that Sonja Blau Kohn passed the first two of five securities-licensing exams in November and joined Merrill Lynch in mid Kohn was always trying to think of new business schemes, says a person she tried to enlist in Internet ventures: "She was always looking for the things that were going to make her rich.

She was motivated by greed and the power that comes to people who are wealthy. Madoff would have been a dream come true. While at Merrill, an accountant friend directed her to Maurice "Sonny" Cohn, a partner of Madoff's in a company called Cohmad Securities.

When Cohn sent Kohn to Madoff, she was touting herself as "the biggest producer" Merrill Lynch had as a stockbroker. Immediately, Madoff began paying Kohn to scout customers. In Kohn shifted her focus to Vienna, moving there and opening Bank Medici, projecting an aura of gilded prestige. In the s, European private-wealth managers were just discovering the world of hedge funds and were eager to find ways to place money with Madoff.

He was, after all, the legendary stockbroker who had helped revolutionize computerized stock trading. Some investors believed Madoff's expertise was benefiting, perhaps illegally, from inside knowledge his firm had about customer stock-trading patterns.

The assumption was that investors could enjoy a free ride on his so-called front-running performance as long as he did not get caught.

That fragrant hint of potential illegality became catnip for investors who wanted to push to the edge in pursuit of greater returns, which Madoff's firm did until the core Ponzi scheme was revealed.

An Austrian who worked for Kohn says, "She captured the 'wink, wink' crowd who wanted desperately to get in with Madoff. Her defense is expected to be that big institutional investors, banks, and hedge funds should have done their own due diligence. Using a welter of offshore companies, Kohn crafted a hedge-fund empire built around Bank Medici, the boutique institution whose name conjures up the famous Italian Renaissance financiers renowned as patrons of the arts.

Bank Medici's marketing booklets, bound in what looks like red leather, were laden with pictures and quotations from Henry Ford, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, and Socrates.

The booklets touted three hedge funds—without mentioning that the assets were entrusted to Madoff. To appeal to moneybags from former Eastern Bloc countries, she even had a Russian-language version printed.

In regard to Kohn, the brochure stated: "Fluent in five languages, she blends European values with sophisticated American financial know how. And yet, underneath all the patina of accomplishment, one person who knows her says the key to her drive may ultimately may have been a sense of inadequacy.