Two Lives: A Social and Financial Memoir

Dimitri Yassukovich is exiled by the Bolshevik Revolution, builds a new life and career as a Wall Street investment banker, and lays the foundations in Europe for one of the great investment banking houses of the City. His son Stanislas, after an inglorious youth in the Gatsby land of Long Island, joins his father's firm White, Weld & Co., finds himself at the epicentre of the City's revival from postwar doldrums, and becomes an architect of the Euromarkets. His highly personal and anecdotal chronicle of these two lives leads us through the history of high finance and its revival, and the heady days of the internationalisation of the City, through the ‘Big Bang' and its aftermath. Two Lives is a serious, and yet light-hearted account of a critical period in 20th century finance and of two unusual personalities.

Stanislas Yassukovich was born in Paris of a White Russian émigré father and a French mother. Settling in the United States at the outset of World War II, he was brought up on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., attending Green Vale School there, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, and Harvard College. After service in the U.S Marine Corps, he joined White, Weld & Co., New York investment bankers and was posted to its London office. Yassukovich subsequently formed and managed European Banking Company, became a Deputy Chairman of The Stock Exchange, London, Chairman of the Securities & Futures Authority, and, finally, Chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe, Middle East & Africa. After service as a non-executive director on various boards, he retired to the South of France. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is married to the former Diana Townsend, and has three children: Tatyana, Michael and Nicholas.