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Eugene Ludwig

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Gene Ludwig
27th Comptroller of the Currency
In office
April 5, 1993 - April 3, 1998
PresidentBill Clinton
Preceded byRobert L. Clarke
Succeeded byJohn D. Hawke Jr.
Personal details
Born (1946-04-11) April 11, 1946 (age 78)
New York City, New York, U.S.
SpouseCarol Ludwig
Children3
EducationHaverford College (BA)
New College, Oxford (MA)
Yale University (JD)

Eugene A. "Gene" Ludwig (born April 11, 1946) is an American business leader and expert on banking regulation, risk management, and fiscal policy. From 1993 to 1998 he served as Comptroller of the Currency.

He is the founder and former CEO and chairman of Promontory Financial Group, a risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm. Ludwig is currently co-managing partner of the venture capital firm Canapi Ventures and the CEO of Ludwig Advisors. He is also the chairman of Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), a non-profit economic research organization. He was also a vice chairman of Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank.[citation needed]

Early life

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Ludwig was born in Brooklyn, New York,[1] to Jacob S. and Louise Rabiner Ludwig[2] and raised in York, Pennsylvania.[3] His father was a doctor[4] and his mother was a former Broadway chorus girl.[5]

Education

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Ludwig received a bachelor's degree from Haverford College in 1968. He studied philosophy at Oxford University.[when?] He graduated with a master's of arts degree from New College in politics and economics. He graduated from Yale Law School with a JD degree. At Yale Law School, he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and president of Yale Legislative Services.[6]

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In 1973, Ludwig was hired by the law firm of Covington and Burling and became a partner in 1981. He specialized in intellectual property law, banking, and international trade.[citation needed] His legal career dealt with the fight against grey market goods.[7]

Comptroller of the Currency

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In 1993, Ludwig became the 27th Comptroller of the Currency. Ludwig took office after the early 1990s recession had caused bank failures and created a credit crunch.[8] During his time in office, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency took the lead in regulators’ 1993 initiatives to alleviate a lingering credit crunch by encouraging banks to increase lending.[9][clarification needed] Ludwig's agency improved supervision through adoption of "supervision by risk".[10]

Ludwig led President Clinton's initiatives to reform the Community Reinvestment Act and more vigorously enforce the fair lending laws.[11] In December 1993, Ludwig was singled out by then-Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, who praised “his efforts to make CRA reform a reality."[12]

During five years in office, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conducted 4,000 fair lending examinations of national banks. The agency made 25 referrals of fair lending violations to the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Previously, there had been only one such referral to a federal agency charged with fair lending enforcement.[13]

As Comptroller, Ludwig served as a member of the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision, a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and a director of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation.[14]

Business career

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Ludwig served as vice chairman of Bankers Trust/Deutsche Bank from April 1998[15] to December 31, 1999.[16] During his time there, he participated in the rescue negotiations for Long-Term Capital Management, a bond-trading hedge fund that was recapitalized under the Federal Reserve’s guidance by 16 leading financial institutions to prevent its collapse.[17]

In 2001, Ludwig founded Promontory Financial Group, becoming its CEO and chairman. The firm gained attention when, following a $750 million trading scandal at Allied Irish Banks, Promontory produced what became known as "The Ludwig Report,"[18] recommending improved compliance and management measures which helped the bank regain its footing.[19] In 2007, after Ludwig advised Countrywide Financial, Portfolio.com wrote that "[Countrywide CEO] Angelo Mozilo is a tough character, and Ludwig is one of the few people with enough clout to persuade him that the game really was up."[20]

Ludwig is also co-founder and managing partner of Canapi Ventures, a venture capital firm,[21] and founder and CEO of Ludwig Advisors, which advises financial firms on critical matters. Promontory Interfinancial Network, a separate company that Ludwig started in 2003 with former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder, was sold in 2019 to Blackstone Group.[22][23] Since 2021 Ludwig has sat on the Advisory Board of Suade Labs, a provider of regulatory technology to banks.[24]

Publications

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Ludwig is the editor of The Vanishing American Dream, a book that provides comments from experts across the political spectrum on the economic challenges facing lower- and middle-income Americans.[25][26] The book was the outcome of a 2019 Yale Law School symposium organized by Ludwig. The book examines how traditional economic measures like the unemployment rate and GDP are masking a crisis for millions of lower- and middle-income families, who struggle to afford health care, housing, and education and occupy jobs that cannot help them reverse the downward slide. Kirkus Reviews gave the book a positive review.”[27]

Ludwig has written numerous articles on banking, finance, and economic policy for scholarly journals and publications and has been a guest lecturer at Yale and Harvard law schools and Georgetown University's International Law Institute.[28] Ludwig's works center on the economic challenges confronting lower- and middle-income Americans. He has noted that real-wage stagnation and increases in the costs of education, housing, health care and food, have created a situation where middle-income households were spending 78% of their budgets on basic needs in 2014.[29]

In 2008, Ludwig co-authored an essay in The Wall Street Journal with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady calling for a resurrection of the Resolution Trust Corporation to help deal with the financial crisis.[30]

Civic activities and honors

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Ludwig is president of The Ludwig Family Foundation Inc., a charitable organization that focuses on improving education, alleviating poverty, and supporting medical research and the arts.[31] In 2019, The Ludwig Family Foundation created The Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, dedicated to improving the economic well-being of lower-income Americans through research and education.[32]

He is a long-time member of the board of directors of the National Academy Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that helps prepare low- and moderate-income students for college and careers.[33] Ludwig has also endowed several funds and programs, including the Ludwig Fund for the Humanities at New College, Oxford;[34] the Eugene and Carol Ludwig Center for Community & Economic Development at Yale Law School;[35] and the Ludwig Fund for Community Development at Haverford College.[36]

Ludwig has received numerous awards for excellence and leadership, including the BritishAmerican Business Entrepreneurship Award (2010),[37] National Academy Foundation Leadership Award (2011),[38] Simeon E. Baldwin Award, presented by the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law (2011),[39] the Foreign Policy Association Medal (2014),[40] and the Jill Chaifetz Award presented by Advocates for Children (2014.)[41]

He is a Wykeham Fellow at New College, Oxford.[42]

Personal life

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Ludwig lives in Washington, D.C. He is married to Dr. Carol Ludwig, and they have three children.[citation needed] His younger brother Ken Ludwig is a playwright.[43]

References

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  1. ^ “Nomination of Eugene Allan Ludwig to Be Comptroller of the Currency for a Term of Five Years,” U.S. Senate Hearing 103-92, before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, March 31, 1993
  2. ^ Washington Post obituary, "Louise R. Ludwig, Businesswoman," August 28, 1998
  3. ^ U.S. Senate Hearing 103-92, nomination hearing record, 1993, page 1
  4. ^ United States Banker cover story, "Why Eugene Ludwig Makes Bankers Nervous, August 1993
  5. ^ "The Washington Post, "Playwright Ken Ludwig's Childhood Dream"". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2017-09-20.
  6. ^ U.S. Senate Hearing 103-92, nomination hearing record, 1993, pages 2, 43
  7. ^ Service, States News (3 May 1987). "Businessmen Bemoan Losses to 'Gray Market'". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Michael Quint, “Quicksand for Banks,” The New York Times, March 27, 1990.
  9. ^ Jerry Knight, “Regulators Offer Steps to Ease Bank Lending,” The Washington Post, June 11, 1993
  10. ^ "OCC Press Release, Supervision by Risk". Archived from the original on 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2010-08-09.
  11. ^ Official biography, "Eugene A. Ludwig, Comptroller of the Currency, 1993 to 1998," Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
  12. ^ "Press Briefing by Secretary of the Treasury, Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Eugene Ludwig, Comptroller of the Currency | the American Presidency Project".
  13. ^ Testimony of Eugene A. Ludwig before Re. Maxine Waters' "Forum on Community Reinvestment and Access to Credit: California’s Challenge," Los Angeles, January 12, 1998. Found in: OCC Quarterly Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2, June 1998, page 28.
  14. ^ "Eugene A. Ludwig". Archived from the original on 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
  15. ^ Bill McConnell, "Ludwig Joining Bankers Trust as a Vice Chairman," American Banker, April 22, 1998
  16. ^ "Ludwig, Partners Organizing Investment Fund," American Banker, January 14, 2000
  17. ^ Eugene A. Ludwig,"Unregulated Shadow Banks Are a Ticking Time Bomb,” American Banker, March 15, 2016
  18. ^ "The Irish Times, The Ludwig Report". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 2012-10-21. Retrieved 2020-02-19.
  19. ^ "Countrywide Under Promontory Review," Business Week, November 28, 2007
  20. ^ "Portfolio.com, "How Gene Ludwig Forced the Countrywide Sale"". Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 2010-08-09.
  21. ^ "Gene Ludwig, Chip Mahan launch $545M fund for bank-friendly fintechs". 22 January 2020.
  22. ^ Rob Blackwell, “New Pitch: Deposit Insurance Sharing,” American Banker, January 21, 2003
  23. ^ Luisa Beltran, "Blackstone to Scoop Up Promontory Interfinancial," PE Hub, September 17, 2019. Subscription required.
  24. ^ "Suade Labs raises strategic Series A Funding". FF News | Fintech Finance. 2021-11-17. Retrieved 2024-10-21.
  25. ^ News release, "Gene Ludwig to Release New Book Examining the Plight of Lower- and Middle-Income Americans," Promontory Interfinancial Network, issued via Business Wire, June 4, 2020.
  26. ^ "Gene Ludwig". Archived from the original on 2020-09-04. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  27. ^ "THE VANISHING AMERICAN DREAM | Kirkus Reviews". July 30, 2020.
  28. ^ "Ludwig speeches". Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2010-08-09.
  29. ^ "America's Economic Challenges," Banking Exchange, April 4, 2018
  30. ^ Brady, Ludwig, and Volcker, "Resurrect the Resolution Trust Corp.," The Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2008
  31. ^ Archived copy Archived 2020-09-10 at the Wayback Machine
  32. ^ Press release, "Gene Ludwig to Release New Book Examining the Plight of Lower- and Middle-Income Americans," Promontory Interfinancial Network, issued via Business Wire, June 4, 2020.
  33. ^ "NAF Board of Directors - be Future Ready - Transforming High School Education".
  34. ^ Archived copy Archived 2017-04-20 at the Wayback Machine
  35. ^ Archived copy Archived 2015-12-18 at the Wayback Machine
  36. ^ Haverford College Endowed Internships,
  37. ^ "Promontory Financial Group". Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2015-08-18.
  38. ^ Leadership Awards Abound New York Social Diary, June 13, 2011 Archived 2015-10-24 at the Wayback Machine
  39. ^ "List of Simeon e. Baldwin Award Recipients". Archived from the original on 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2017-07-17.
  40. ^ Victoria Finkle, “Promontory’s Ludwig Wins Foreign Policy Medal,” American Banker, February 28, 2014.
  41. ^ "Advocates for Children of New York - Spring Benefit May 7, 2014" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-12-04. Retrieved July 4, 2021.
  42. ^ "Emeritus and Wykeham Fellows". New College.
  43. ^ "Dear Jack, Dear Louise".
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Government offices
Preceded by Comptroller of the Currency
1993–1998 		Succeeded by
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