Timothy George Massad (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer and government official who served as the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under President Barack Obama. He had previously been Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability at the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

, where he oversaw the

Troubled Asset Relief Program The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President ...

(TARP) created by the U.S. government in response to the

financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of f ...

. Massad earned his undergraduate degree at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1978. After stints working for

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the U ...

and the

AFL–CIO The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...

, he returned to Harvard to earn a J.D. degree in 1981. He then began a 25-year career as a corporate lawyer at the firm

Cravath, Swaine & Moore Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (known as Cravath) is an American white-shoe law firm with its headquarters in New York City, and an additional office in London. The firm is known for its complex and high profile litigation and mergers & acquisiti ...

, where he became an expert on corporate finance and derivatives. Massad briefly joined the staff of TARP's

Congressional Oversight Panel The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act created the Troubled Asset Relief Program to administer up to $700 billion. Several oversight mechanisms are established by the bill, including the Congressional Oversight Panel, the Special Inspector Gen ...

before moving to the

Office of Financial Stability The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability was the head of the Office of Financial Stability in the United States Department of the Treasury. The position was created on October 3, 2008 by the Emergency Economic Stabilization ...

as chief counsel. In September 2010 he was named acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability. The

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

confirmed him to the position in June 2011. In November 2013,

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

nominated him to be CFTC chairman. The Senate confirmed him in June 2014.

Early life and education

Massad was born July 30, 1956,WhoRunsGov
Tim Massad
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

''. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

.Douwe Miedema
New swaps regulator must prove mettle in Wall Street reform

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

, Nov. 12, 2013. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. His parents were the children of Lebanese immigrants. His mother, Delores Jean Razook, was a homemaker, and his father, Alexander Hamilton Massad, was an executive in the oil industry, mostly at Mobil. In Timothy's earlier years the family moved often because of his father's career, but in 1968 they settled in

Darien, Connecticut Darien ( ) is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any ...

, where the parents remained for 18 years. Massad has a brother and a sister.Alexander Massad: obituary
''

The Oklahoman ''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th large ...

'', Jan. 19, 2010. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. Massad graduated from

Darien High School Darien High School is the single public high school serving the town of Darien, Connecticut, in the United States. Background In 2014, Darien High School had the highest SAT scores in the state. In the 2004–2005 school year, Darien had the s ...

in 1974 as a

National Merit Scholar The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizati ...

and interned with a Congressman.Stephen Voss
Tim Massad: Washington's most powerful money manager?
'' The Washingtonian'', Sep. 8, 2011. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014.Francis X. Fay, Jr. Darien native quarterbacking Dukakis' Connecticut campaign. '' The Hour'', Sep. 12, 1988, p. 1 He then enrolled at

, earning a bachelor's degree '' magna cum laude'' in social studies in 1978. After graduation he went to work for

and also worked for the

, a labor movement organization. During this time he was active in the

anti-nuclear movement The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...

.Paul W. Valentine, Karlyn Barker. The protestors: 65,000 protest dependence on A-energy. ''

'', May 7, 1979.

Legal career

Unsatisfied with his employers' grasp of business and economics, Massad enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1981. In 1983 he helped organize a petition against permitting professors to count class participation toward students' grades. He graduated in 1984 and began his 25-year career at the law firm

that same year. At Cravath he became a generalist in corporate law with focus on corporate finance and international business. He was mostly based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, but he also worked at Cravath's

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

office for a year and co-managed the

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

office from 1998 to 2002.Timothy Massad

, Jul. 1, 2011. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. In 2007 he headed Cravath's

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

practice. During his time at Cravath he became an expert on derivatives and securities law, co-writing with other Cravath lawyers the

ISDA Master Agreement The ISDA Master Agreement, published by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, is the most commonly used master service agreement for OTC derivatives transactions internationally. It is part of a framework of documents, designed ...

that governs most derivatives contracts between institutions.

Government service

The

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, often called the "bank bailout of 2008", was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, passed by the 110th United States Congress, and signed into law by President George W. Bush. It became ...

was enacted in October 2008 in response to the ongoing

financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...

. It created the Office of Financial Stability within the Treasury Department to administer the

(TARP), a $700-billion

bailout A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy. A bailout differs from the term ''bail-in'' (coined in 2010) under which the bondholders or depositors of global sys ...

fund for the financial industry. Massad became involved in TARP when he called a friend, Damon Silvers, to congratulate him on being named to the program's

. During this conversation, Silvers recruited him to join the panel's staff.Michael R. Crittenden
Treasury official Massad to step down
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', Oct. 4, 2013. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. Massad took a leave of absence from Cravath from December 2008 to February 2009 to be a pro bono legal adviser to the panel.Peter Schroeder
Massad turns out the lights on TARP
'' The Hill'', Jun. 10, 2011. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. Later, when Treasury officials were looking for a chief counsel for the Office of Financial Stability, Silvers recommended Massad. Massad left Cravath in May 2009 to take the position. Following the departure of Herbert M. Allison, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability, Massad was named acting Assistant Secretary beginning in September 2010. The

confirmed In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...

his appointment as Assistant Secretary in June 2011. In this role he has supervised the gradual wind-down of TARP. Massad announced in October 2013 that he would resign as Assistant Secretary. The next month,

announced he would nominate Massad to be chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates derivatives. That post became vacant on Jan. 3, 2014, when

Gary Gensler Gary Gensler (born October 18, 1957) is an American government official and former investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Gensler previously led the Presidential transition of Joe Biden, Biden–Ha ...

stepped down. The Senate confirmed him on June 3, 2014. He was sworn in on June 5.

Political activities

Timothy Massad certifies last AIG receipt

Massad is a longtime donor to the Democratic National Committee and to Democratic candidates, including

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...

in the 2004 presidential election and Obama and

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

in the 2008 presidential election. He was active in the anti-nuclear movement in the years before he went to law school, organizing with Donald K. Ross a large protest in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, on May 6, 1979, in the wake of the

Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...

. During law school Massad worked on

Michael Dukakis Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...

's successful 1982 campaign for

Governor of Massachusetts The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces. Massachuset ...

. During the 1988 presidential election Massad again supported Dukakis, whom he described as his political hero. Massad was a voting delegate at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, where Dukakis was nominated for president, and took a leave of absence from Cravath to serve as

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

director of the Dukakis campaign for the general election. Dukakis lost Connecticut, and the election, to George H. W. Bush.

Personal life

Massad is an accomplished cook. In his early years at Cravath he spent his vacations as a volunteer apprentice at the

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

restaurant Bouley.Alexandrea Stevenson, Ben Protess
Obama nominates Treasury official as top derivatives regulator
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', Nov. 12, 2013. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. He is known at Treasury for running a baking contest among his staff.Andrew Ackerman and Michael R. Crittenden
Compared to CFTC, heading TARP may have been easy job
''

'', Nov. 12, 2013. Accessed Jan. 6, 2014. Massad has a wife and two children. They live in Washington, D.C.

References