Alan H. Fishman (born 16 March 1946) is an American businessman. He was notably the last CEO of Washington Mutual (WaMu) prior to its assets being seized by federal regulators on September 25, 2008.

Education and Career

Fishman holds a bachelor's degree from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

and a master's degree in economics from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He was previously president and chief operating officer of

Sovereign Bank Santander Bank, N. A. (), formerly Sovereign Bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Santander Group. It is based in Boston and its principal market is the northeastern United States. It has $57.5 billion in deposits, operates about ...

and president and chief executive officer of Independence Community Bank. He has served as chairman of Meridian Capital Group (beginning in 2007), one of the nation's largest commercial mortgage brokerage firms. He has been a private equity investor, focusing on financial services at Neuberger & Berman, Adler & Shaykin and at his own firm Columbia Financial Partners. In addition, he held senior executive positions at

Chemical Bank Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world. Beginning ...

and ContiFinancial Corporation. Fishman was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

, on which he served for nearly thirty years, until January 2017.

Washington Mutual

Fishman joined WaMu on 8 September 2008, replacing outgoing

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Kerry Killinger as part of that bank's restructuring in the face of the

subprime mortgage crisis The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, 2007–2008 global financial crisis. It was triggered by a large decline ...

of 2008. He served as the bank's CEO for 17 days before its banking assets were seized by federal regulators in the largest bank failure in American history. WaMu's banking operations were sold to

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

for $1.9 billion, while the remainder of WaMu declared bankruptcy the next day. According to C-Span on 26 September 2008, Alan H. Fishman was ultimately paid $19 million for three weeks of being with Washington Mutual, including severance pay. Meanwhile, the company's stock price dwindled to only pennies after trading as high as $45 a share in 2007. The previous CEO was paid $14 million for one year on the job.

References

Brown University alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Living people 1960 births American chief operating officers American chief executives of financial services companies 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-CEO-stub