Frank Savage, who became one of the relatively few Black Americans to reach the upper echelons of global finance and competitive sailing and, at the zenith of his career, grew entangled in the Enron scandal as a board member of that now-defunct energy giant, died on July 16 in Newport, R.I. He was 87.
He was diagnosed two years ago with dementia, his daughter Grace Loughborough said in confirming the death, in a hospice center.
Raised in segregated Washington, D.C., by an entrepreneurial single mother, Mr. Savage credited her with instilling the self-confidence and determination that drove his career in international finance, banking and investment management as well as his interests as a sportsman.
Mr. Savage, who in 1964 became the first Black officer named to the international division of what became Citibank, later spent more than two decades with Equitable Life overseeing its investment in minority-owned companies and attracting several billion dollars for its global investment management portfolio. From the early 1990s to 2001, he was chairman of the international division of Alliance Capital Management Holding LP of New York, one of the nation’s largest investment companies.
His influence stretched into academia. From 1997 to 2004, he was board chairman of Howard University, the historically Black school in Washington, from which he graduated in 1961 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics. He was also a longtime trustee at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he received his master’s degree as one of two Black students in his class in the School of Advanced International Studies; he established a scholarship there for minority students.
He also sat on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations and high-profile companies, including Enron, and regularly attended the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where the business, political and media elite congregate.
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The post Frank Savage, 87, Business Leader Entangled in Enron Scandal, Is Dead appeared first on New York Times.
