Frank Zarb

Frank Zarb’s career highlights include serving as nonexecutive chairman of American International Group from 2005 to 2006 and as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. He is also known for having led the nation’s response to the first major oil embargo in the 1970s, when he served as the “energy czar” under President Gerald Ford.

As chairman and CEO of the National Association of Securities Dealers (the largest self-regulator in the U.S.) and the Nasdaq Stock Market from 1997 to 2001, Mr. Zarb drove the exchange’s emergence as a public company that handles stock trading around the clock and around the world.

Previously, he was chairman, CEO, and president of insurance brokerage firm Alexander & Alexander Services Inc.; vice chairman and group chief executive of The Travelers Inc.; and chairman and CEO of Smith Barney. Before joining Smith Barney, he served as a senior partner at Lazard Frères & Co. and as a general partner at Goodbody & Co.

Mr. Zarb served in various capacities in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. From 1971 to 1977 he was executive director of the cabinet-level Energy Resources Council, administrator of the Federal Energy Administration, and assistant to the president of the United States for Energy Affairs (the “energy czar”). He also served in the Nixon-Ford administration as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget and as assistant secretary of labor.

Mr. Zarb graduated from Hofstra University, where he also earned an MBA and an honorary Doctor of Law degree and is an adjunct professor of finance. The university has named its business school the Frank G. Zarb School of Business in his honor. He is an executive in residence at Columbia University and serves on the Council of Economic and Fiscal Advisors chaired by New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo.