Thomas A. Russo

Russo joined AIG in 2010 as executive vice president and general counsel when the company was still owned by U.S. taxpayers and digging out from a $185 billion government bailout. He oversaw the legal aspects of the company's divestiture to focus on its insurance business and was instrumental in negotiating strategic transactions that enabled the company to fully reimburse the federal government for its bailout. At the time of his departure, AIG Chief Executive Peter Hancock wrote that Russo's accomplishments at AIG included "having led the company through negotiations with the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank of New York to repay the government and U.S. taxpayers with a profit. The in-house team negotiated more than 90 strategic transactions to sell AIG's non-core assets, guided six sales of AIG common stock by the U.S. Treasury, and fended off unprecedented litigation challenges."

From 1993 to 2008, Russo was vice chairman of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and was chief legal officer of the firm through its 2008 bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history. When he joined the company, it had 325 outside law firms so Russo reduced the number of outside lawyers and incentivized the firms to bring investment banking business to Lehman Brothers. He negotiated the sale of Shearson Lehman to Primerica Corp. for $1 billion, at that time the largest brokerage acquisition ever. He was a key player in bringing about the record $1.4 billion settlement in 2003 by 10 Wall Street companies, accused by the SEC and New York State of conflicts of interest while aiming to increase their investment-banking business. In 2005, Russo was the second-highest-paid legal counsel in America. He served on the board of the Security Industry Association, Wall Street's lobbying arm and led efforts to streamline Wall Street regulations. He led efforts by Wall Street to self-regulate the over-the-counter derivatives market. He was a regular attendee of the World Economic Forum.

Russo also served as an advisor to the 1987 Brady Commission and was an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Graduate Business School. He has authored several books and over 70 articles on topics in the commodities, securities and corporate legal fields relating to financial market regulation.

In 1977, Russo rejoined Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft as a partner and began representing many of Wall Street's biggest banks, funds, brokerage firms and investment banks. He was widely recognized as an expert on how New York's stock markets interact with Chicago's futures markets. He served as an advisor to the Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms after the stock market crash of 1987. In 1989, he was a leading candidate of President George H.W. Bush to lead the SEC. He was frequently named one of the “100 Most Influential Attorneys in the United States” by the National Law Journal.

After earning his legal degree, Russo was a staff attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 1971, Russo became an associate at the Wall Street law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. In 1975, Russo was appointed deputy general counsel of the newly created Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shortly thereafter became the first director of its Division of Trading and Markets.It was reported that President Jimmy Carter considered Russo for the post of chairman of the CFTC.

Russo was born in Staten Island, New York and is the son of Lucio F. Russo, a former New York State assemblyman, and Tina I. Russo. He attended Xavier High School in Manhattan, a private Jesuit preparatory school. In 1960, he worked as floor clerk at the American Stock Exchange. Russo pursued a bachelor's degree in economics at Fordham University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1965. In 1969, he received an MBA from the Cornell Graduate School of Business, and in that same year his J.D. degree from Cornell Law School.

Thomas A. Russo (born November 6, 1943) is an American attorney and former Wall Street executive. He served as vice chairman and chief legal officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and as general counsel for American International Group (AIG), two of the companies central to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.