About Arthur
Arthur Ainsberg has extensive and diversified experience in the financial services sector. His career includes significant management, financial and compliance experience. During his career, Mr. Ainsberg has served in senior management roles at Oppenheimer & Co., Odyssey Partners, and Brahman Capital Corp. In addition, during his career, he was associated with the CPA firms of Spicer & Oppenheim and EisnerAmper LLP.
From 1996 through 2014, Arthur was on the Board of Directors of Nomura Securities, Inc. Throughout his tenure, he served as both the chairman of the Audit Committee and a member of the Compliance Committee.
He served as COO for the Lehman Brothers Inc., In Liquidation Bankruptcy from 2009-2011. The Lehman Bankruptcy represents the largest and most complex bankruptcy in American history.
In December 2003 Arthur was appointed Independent Research Consultant for Morgan Stanley & Co. As part of the April 2003 Global Settlement between the ten largest U.S. Investment banks and securities regulators, each of the ten settling banks was required to retain a regulator-approved Independent Research Consultant, who was responsible for selecting and monitoring the providers of independent research for the clients of the banks.
From 2003 to May 2012, Arthur was on the board of National Financial Partners, a $1-billion financial services company, listed on the NYSE. He served as chairman of the NFP’s Audit Committee from July 2003 to March 2007. From 2007-2012, he was a member of the Audit and Corporate Governance committees. In addition, Arthur has been designated the Audit Committee’s financial expert under Section 407 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
In November 2011, he was named to the Board of Directors of PhenixFIN Corporation. PhenixFIN Corporation is a NASDAQ company specializing in providing secured senior financing to privately-owned corporations. He serves as Lead Director, Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee and is a member of the Audit Committee.
From May 2013 to June 2020, Arthur was a member of the Board of Directors of AG Mortgage Investment Trust. During his tenure on the AG Mortgage Investment Trust board, Arthur served as chairman of the Audit Committee and was a member of the Compensation Committee. AG is a NYSE company, structured as a REIT, investing in various types of mortgage investments.
In 1986, Arthur founded Ainsberg Associates, a financial consulting firm. As a widely recognized financial and securities expert witness, he has testified in securities fraud cases on issues such as due diligence, regulatory compliance, suitability, valuation, and securities damages, and has served as a consultant/securities arbitrator for FINRA and its predecessor organizations. From 1998-2000, he was a member of the Board of District 10 of the NASD, the predecessor organization of FINRA.
In conjunction with Jack Nash and Leon Levy, Mr. Ainsberg was the founding CFO of Odyssey Partners and later served as the COO for two additional investment partnerships, Brahman Partners and Bessent Capital.
He served as chairman of the New York State Board for Public Accountancy from 1998-2000 and was a member of that board from 1993-2001.
Arthur earned his BBA in accounting and MBA in finance from Baruch College and served as a member of the college’s Board of Trustees from 1995 until June 2011. He has been involved in numerous professional organizations, including the American Institute of CPAs, The New York State Society of CPAs and SIFMA.
As a nationally recognized lecturer on matters involving both the accounting and financial services industries, Arthur has, for many years, given an annual lecture at Stanford Law School, The University of Chicago Law School, New York University Graduate School of Business, and Baruch College on topics including “The Role of A Director,” “The Effectiveness of Sarbanes Oxley,” and “Securities Fraud in a Post-2008 World.”
A recognized scholar on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica aboard the Endurance, Arthur writes and lectures frequently on the leadership lessons to be garnered from Shackleton’s heroic 1914-1916 expedition. He authored the book Shackleton: Lessons in Leadership, published in 2008.
In 2010 Arthur published his second book, Breakthrough–Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle, which chronicles the discovery of insulin in 1921 and focuses on one of the earliest recipients of insulin, Elizabeth Hughes. The book was the inspiration for a four-month exhibit at the New-York Historical Society in the fall of 2010.
Arthur is also a member of The Lotos Club and The Grolier Club. In 2015, he was elected as a fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine. He is a world traveler, having visited 75 countries and all seven continents.