One of Wall Street's best-known names, Felix Rohatyn is President of FGR Associates, a boutique financial advisory firms. Ambassador Rohatyn was born in Vienna and spent most of his career at Lazard Freres & Company LLC, an international partnership he joined in 1948 and helped build into an mergers and acquisitions powerhouse. Ambassador Robatyn left Lazard in 1997 to become U.S. ambassador to France under President Bill Clinton. After completing his term as ambassador in 2000, the following year he set up Rohatyn Associates. Ambassador Rohatyn played a critical role in helping New York City avoid a financial crisis in the late 1970's when he agreed to be chairman of New York state's Municipal Assistance Corp. One of the most original and influential economic thinkers in the world, Rohatyn has served on the Board of Governors of the New York Stock Exchange and on the boards of directors of a number of multi-national corporations. He led the NYSE Crisis Committee through a period of great instability in the 1970's, working to find financing that kept tottering companies from collapse. A visionary investment banker who guided a host of the world's largest corporations through the takeover wars of the 1980's, Rohatyn negotiated a number of historic mergers and acquisitions. Felix Rohatyn is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and his columns and editorials also appear in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Le Monde and The New York Review of Books. Rohatyn is also frequently a guest commentator on network news programs. Rohatyn is a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He currently serves on the boards of directory of Comcast Corporation, Fiat, S.p.A., Suez, LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) and Publicis Groupe, S.A. Rohatyn also is chairman of Aton Pharma, Inc., a pharmaceutical company involved in the research and development of drugs for the treatment of cancer. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of numerous other nonprofit organizations. He is a commander in the French Legion of Honor.