Richard Torrenzano,
Chairman and Chief Executive

Richard Torrenzano is chairman and chief executive of The Torrenzano Group, a strategic communications and critical issues management firm specializing in building and protecting corporate reputations, enhancing shareholder value and helping clients grow their businesses.

The Torrenzano Group helps organizations take control of how they are perceived^™.

The firm specializes in strategic communications and critical issues management, media relations, investor relations and financial communications, crisis communications and special situations, M&A and transaction communications, as well as business-to-business communications and economic development.

Rich has counseled chief executives and boards of international corporations in the United States, Europe and Latin America, as well as several heads of state.

He has extensive hands on experience in the world's financial markets. For nearly a decade at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Rich was a member of the Big Board's management (policy) and executive (operations) committees and senior vice president.

Through a period of rapidly developing public policy issues, historic levels of market activity, unprecedented change in world affairs and intense global media coverage, Rich was responsible for planning and directing the NYSE's external activities and programs

A recognized global expert in crisis management, at the NYSE Rich led one of the largest – and what was widely perceived as the most effective – communication and public policy staffs of any financial institution in the world.

He managed the public strategies for significant global financial crises, including the market crash in October 1987 and the1998 Federal Reserve Bank's $4 billion recapitalization of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), financed by a consortium of 14 of the world's largest financial institutions. His counsel and work helped restore confidence in the NYSE and U.S. capital markets.

During the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks he provided counsel to client executives at Merrill Lynch, Lloyd's of London, Nasdaq Stock Market, National Association of Securities Dealers, American Stock Exchange and Security Traders Association – all significantly affected by the crisis. In the global economic downturn in 2008, he has been visible in the national and international arenas advising corporations on crisis.

Rich developed and implemented public strategies to deal with other significant market moments including: insider trading scandals, hundreds of corporate mergers, acquisitions and IPOs, corporate governance and shareholder activism issues, bankruptcies, regulatory and disciplinary actions and program trading.

At the request of the President of the United States – following the Bush-Gorbachev Malta Summit in 1989 – Rich was instrumental in negotiating and planning the landmark 1990 NYSE USSR-US Moscow seminar on financial markets. It was attended by several hundred academic, business, financial and government leaders in the Soviet Union. This program served as a catalyst for the opening of new exchanges in Malta and St. Petersburg.

Rich was also part of the delegation earlier that year that advised the key political and business leaders of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland on the transition to capitalism and opening of financial markets in those countries.

He negotiated and planned the historic 1986 China-US symposium on financial markets in Beijing. Those meetings with senior academic, business and government leaders galvanized the opening of exchanges in Shanghai, moving China toward capitalism.

Concurrent with those activities, Rich coordinated White House-related activities for the NYSE chief executive officer - in his capacity as chairman of President Reagan's Board of Advisors on Private Sector Initiatives.

As a top corporate officer, he has made a specialty of identifying emerging issues and managing responses for: product tampering and liability, planned or surprise senior management changes, large scale computer system buildups or breakdowns, computer hacker attacks, fires, bomb threats, special interest protests, terrorism, as well as local, regional, federal and international government oversight committees, commissions, studies, testimony and rulings.

In the early 1990's, Rich was director and senior vice president-corporate affairs and a member of the Executive Management Committee for SmithKline Beecham, Plc. SB, which was one of the world's leading healthcare companies with more than 300 products marketed in 130 countries and revenues exceeding $14 billion. SB merged with Glaxo in 2000.

Based in London, he had worldwide responsibility for government affairs and public policy, investor relations and financial communications, issues management and industry relations, media relations and philanthropic activities. Under his leadership, during an intense political climate in global healthcare, corporate affairs was re-energized through management changes, deployment of technology and integration of strategic business plans – all of which strengthened and enhanced SB's global policy reach.

From 1986 through 1992, he served as a member of the Private Sector Advisory Committee to the United States Information Agency, Washington, DC.

Rich was awarded The Ellis Island Medal of Honor and has been recognized by several distinguished international organizations. He is a Knight of Malta; Knight Grand Cross, Order of the Holy Sepulchre; Knight Commander, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, and Knight Commander, Order of Merit, both of the Royal House of Savoy; Knight Commander Jus Patronato of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George, and Knight Grand Cross, Royal Order of Francis I, both of the Royal House of Borbone; Knight, Order of Merit, Republic of Italy.

He is the recipient of several significant professional awards, including two Public Relations Society of America's Silver Anvil awards for institutional and investor relations programs. In the United States, Rich serves on the board of the New York State Trooper Foundation, a member of the Economic Club of New York, National Press Club in Washington, DC and New York Press Club. In England, he is a member of the Royal Society of Medicine and Reform Club.

He received a bachelor's degree in behavioral sciences from the New York Institute of Technology. He served n the university's board of trustees and as a member of its executive committee for twenty four years, and now as Trustee Emeritus. Rich holds NYIT's two highest honors: the president's medal for outstanding service to the community and an honorary Doctor of Letters. He completed the executive program of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, California.

Rich is a frequent speaker and author on issues of crisis management, communications, the media, and conducting business with cross cultural barriers. He is often quoted in business periodicals and makes numerous appearances on network news and public affairs programs.

An avid sailor, he recently joined the board of the Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.