John Thain
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John Alexander Thain (born May 26, 1955 in the United States, grew up in Antioch, Illinois) is the current chairman and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch. Previously, Mr. Thain held management positions at: the New York Stock Exchange (CEO), and Goldman Sachs (President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer). He amassed $300 million in Goldman stock. It was widely believed that Mr. Thain was also a front runner to head Citigroup.[1] [2] [3] Merrill Lynch and Citigroup sought new leaders following the sudden departure of their former CEOs due to disappointing Q3 2007 earnings reports. [4] [5]
Mr. Thain's memberships include: MIT Corporation, Dean's Advisory Council – MIT Sloan School of Management, INSEAD – U.S. National Advisory Board, James Madison Council of the Library of Congress, Federal Reserve Bank of New York's [6] International Capital Markets Advisory Committee, French-American Foundation, Board of Trustees of the National Urban League, The Trilateral Commission [7], and serves as a governor at the New York-Presbyterian Foundation, Inc. [http://www.presbyterianfoundation.org/#
Compensation: In December 2003 NYSE interim Chairman John Reed, told The Wall Street Journal that John Thain would be paid "a plain vanilla number" - about $4 million a year, including bonuses, with no "strange retirement" programs like former CEO Dick Grasso was paid. Merrill Lynch announced that Mr. Thain will receive at least $50 million per year in compensation and could achieve as much as $120 million per year, depending on the company's stock price.
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[edit] Education
Thain earned a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1977 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979.
While at MIT he joined The Delta Upsilon fraternity.
[edit] Political donations
John Thain donated $332,950 to politically affilated groups/individuals: $208,000 to Republicans, $16,000 to Democrats, and $108,750 to special interest groups. [8]
[edit] Family
Mr. Thain's son Alex Thain attended MIT, and was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Alex is a trader for Goldman Sachs.[citation needed] His daughters, Nicole, recently graduated from Yale, while his second daughter, Victoria, is an undergraduate at Duke University.
