Nelson Chai Named President of CIT Group

Nelson Chai has been promoted to president of CIT Group from his post as chief administrative officer and strategy chief.

Nelson J. Chai has been named president of CIT Group effective immediately, the company announced Monday. Chai will retain his current duties as chief administrative officer and strategy chief while taking on leadership of the firm’s corporate finance and vendor finance businesses.

“Nelson has been a key member of my executive team and instrumental in CIT’s continuing transformation,” said CIT CEO John A. Thain in a statement. “In his expanded role, he will focus on domestic and international growth opportunities and creating operating efficiencies for our Corporate Finance and Vendor Finance business segments.”

Chai was CFO at Merrill Lynch under CEO Thain. Thain left the firm in 2009 after it was merged into Bank of America during the financial crisis of 2008. Chai left Merrill last year, becoming one of several Thain allies who ultimately left Merrill Lynch to join CIT. Shortly before Chai’s departure he served briefly as Bank of America’s president for the Asia-Pacific region.

Chai held key executive positions at at AlliedSignal and Philip Morris before joining Dade Behring in 1997 as corporate vice president of worldwide field finance. He later became senior vice president of business development for the medical diagnostics products manufacturer. In June 2000 he was named CFO of Archipelago Exchange, a communication network company whose merger with the New York Stock Exchange Chai helped engineer. In May 2006 Chai became NYSE’s CFO. That year Chai earned $2,168,922 in salary, bonuses and other compensation.

In December 2007 Chai joined Merrill Lynch as CFO as part of Thain’s major shakeup of the firm. In part Chai was lured away by a promised bonus of $2.5 million in cash and stock. During the final three weeks of the year Chai earned a total of $3.1 million from Merrill. The amount was partly to offset his loss of year-end incentives from NYSE. In 2008 Chai received a salary of $600,000 but, like other top Merrill executives, received no bonus as the financial crisis escalated.

In late 2008 when Bank of America acquired Merrill, Chai was named to head up BOA’s Asia business, but Chai left in February, just two weeks after Thain was ousted. Thain approached Chai about CIT’s CFO position in early 2010, but in June Chai was hired as chief administrative officer and head of strategy instead.

Chai was born in New York in 1965 to Korean immigrant parents. He received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He lives in Lake Forest, Illinois with wife Jung and their three children.

Chai has served on the board of directors of the United States-India Business Council since August 17, 2007 and is a member of the national board of directors of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

CIT Group Inc. is a bank holding company that developed from a commercial lender founded in 1906. With its owned subsidiaries CEI provides primarily commercial financing and leasing products and other services to small and middle market businesses across a range of industries.