Thomas A. Russo

Thomas A. Russo joined American International Group, Inc. (AIG) February 2010 as executive vice president and general counsel, with responsibility for legal, compliance, regulatory affairs, and government affairs.

Mr. Russo is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.

Prior to joining AIG, Mr. Russo served as senior counsel in the New York office of Patton Boggs. Mr. Russo was a vice chairman of Lehman Brothers Inc. and the chief legal officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings from January 1993 to December 2008. Before joining Lehman Brothers, Mr. Russo was a senior partner and member of the management committee at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. He also served as an advisor to the Brady Commission and as deputy general counsel of the CFTC and later the first director of the CFTC’s Division of Trading and Markets.

A thought leader on financial market issues, Mr. Russo has testified before Congress on numerous occasions and for over a decade has been a participant at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He has also written more than 70 articles on topics in the commodities, securities and banking fields relating to financial market regulation. Mr. Russo, together with Aaron Katzel, wrote “The 2008 Financial Crisis and its Aftermath: Addressing the Next Debt Challenge,” which is available on Amazon’s Kindle and Google Books.  He has also co-authored the federal securities law book Regulation of Brokers, Dealers and Securities Markets published by Warren, Gorham & Lamont. Mr. Russo authored “Regulation of the Commodities Futures and Options Markets,” a two-volume treatise on federal commodities laws published by Shepard’s/McGraw-Hill.

Professional Affiliations:

• Institute of International Education, administers Fulbright Scholarship Program (Chairman, Executive Committee; Member of Development, Executive Compensation, Scholar Rescue Fund, and Scholar Rescue Fund Selection Committees; Co-founder, Scholar Rescue Fund) 
  
• March of Dimes (Member of the National Board of Trustees from 1998 to June 2009; Member of Executive Committee from 2001 to June 2009; Honorary Member of the National Board of Trustees) 
  
• The Institute for Financial Markets (Vice Chairman, Board of Trustees; Member, Executive Committee and Audit Committee) 
  
• The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation 
  
• The Economic Club of New York 
  
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s International Advisory Committee 
  
• The Fellows of the Phi Beta Kappa Society 
  
• Former Member, Board of Governors of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) 
  
• Editorial Board Member, Futures & Derivatives Law Report 
  
• Practitioner Board of Advisors, Stanford Journal of Law, Business and Finance 
  
• Advisory Council, The Nixon Center 
  
• Advisory Board Member, The Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation
  

 

Back to Board of Trustees