Hoffman, Claire Giannini (1914—)
Hoffman, Claire Giannini (1914—)
American business executive. Born Claire Giannini in San Francisco, California, in 1914; daughter of Amadeo Peter Giannini (a banker); graduated from Mills College, Oakland, California; married Clifford P. Hoffman (an investment banker).
The daughter of Amadeo Peter Giannini, the founder of the Bank of America, Claire Hoffman was born in 1914, raised in San Francisco, and attended Mills College in nearby Oakland. After graduating, she became her father's traveling companion and, upon his death in 1949, succeeded him as a director of the bank, the first woman to hold such an office. Hoffman would retain this position for 36 years, resigning only in 1985, after bank leaders sold the bank's headquarters, which she had considered a monument to her father.
In 1962, Hoffman also became the first woman to serve on the board of trustees of the Employees' Profit Sharing Pension Fund of Sears, Roebuck, the largest general merchandise company in the United States; a year later, she became the first woman to serve as director of Sears. Claire Hoffman was also a director of the American International Investment Corporation and a trustee of the Center for International Economic Growth. She served on the board of regents of St. Mary's College of California, and as a trustee of the Rosemary Hall School in Greenwich, Connecticut.