Risk Metrics Group has appointed former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt to serve on its board of directors. Levitt will be directly involved with a major retail risk suitability initiative and with the firm’s work in the pension industry.
Levitt, currently a senior advisor to The Carlyle Group, joins the company as a non-executive director. He has been asked to help RiskMetrics Group advance its risk suitability monitoring service which assures that advisors match investors’ risk tolerance levels with appropriate investment products.
“Having earned a reputation as America’s foremost investor advocate as well as promoting improved financial reporting, Mr. Levitt shares our view that transparency is the key to liquid and efficient markets,” says Ethan Berman, RiskMetrics Group CEO.
Levitt served as the 25th and longest serving Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1993-2001). RiskMetrics says that during his tenure he fought for the independence of auditors, improved financial reporting and levelling the information playing field through Regulation Fair Disclosure.
“Providing investors with timely, accurate and transparent information about the risks of their assets is crucial to the financial services industry,” says Levitt. “I look forward to assisting financial advisors in their efforts to provide suitable and comprehensible investment advice.”
Prior to joining the Commission, Levitt owned Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. From 1989 to 1993 he served as Chairman of the NYC Economic Development Corporation and from 1978 to 1989 was Chairman of the American Stock Exchange. Prior to that Levitt spent 16 years on Wall Street where he headed Shearson Hayden Stone, the predecessor to Smith Barney. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College in 1952 and served two years in the USAF.