18 Facts About Nelson Chai

Nelson Joosuk Chai was born on 1965 and is an American investment banker and financial executive.

Nelson Chai formerly served as the chief financial officer of American financial services company Merrill Lynch and briefly as Bank of America's president for the Asia-Pacific region.

Nelson Chai is the former president of CIT Group and reported directly to then CEO John Thain.

Nelson Chai served in senior positions at AlliedSignal and Philip Morris before joining medical diagnostics products manufacturer Dade Behring in 1997 as corporate vice president of worldwide field finance; he later became their senior vice president of business development.

Nelson Chai was named chief financial officer of Chicago, Illinois-based electronic communication network company Archipelago Exchange in June 2000.

Nelson Chai was a major driving force behind the merger between Archipelago and the New York Stock Exchange; he repeatedly pressured his boss Archipelago CEO Gerald Putnam, to meet with NYSE officials, though Putnam felt that the NYSE would be uninterested and hoped instead to pursue an acquisition of rival ECN Instinet.

In 2006, Nelson Chai received a salary of $750,000 and a bonus of $825,000 from the NYSE; combined with other payments, his cash compensation for the year totalled $2,168,922.

Nelson Chai replaced Jeffrey Edwards, who had held the position of CFO since 2005; Thain stated Edwards would assume another unspecified role within Merrill.

Nelson Chai was slated to receive a salary of $600,000 in 2008.

Nelson Chai replaced Jason Brand, who had worked at BofA for 15 years.

Nelson Chai had not yet relocated to Hong Kong at the time he quit.

Nelson Chai's departure left just one other member of Thain's management team in place at BofA, Tom Montag as head of sales and trading.

Nelson Chai was born in New York City to Korean immigrant parents.

Nelson Chai studied as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, and went on to receive an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Nelson Chai has three children with his wife Jung, a stay-at-home mom.

Nelson Chai previously drove an Isuzu Trooper compact sport utility vehicle, but traded it in for a Toyota Prius hybrid electric vehicle in 2004.

Nelson Chai has served on the board of directors of the United States-India Business Council since August 17,2007.

Nelson Chai is a member of the national board of directors of the US Fund for UNICEF.