Finance, Policy, and Leadership: Roundtable with Peter Orszag, CEO at Lazard (Professional Level)

Dr. Peter R. Orszag is the CEO and member of the Board of Directors of Lazard, one of the world’s preeminent financial advisory and asset management firms. As CEO, Orszag has raised the firm's relevance and ambitions to provide the most sophisticated and differentiated advice and investment solutions for clients. Prior to becoming Chief Executive of the firm in October 2023, Orszag served as CEO of its financial advisory business and global co-head of its healthcare practice.

Orszag served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Barack Obama, where he also helped craft the Affordable Care Act. He previously served as Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), providing economic data and analyses to Congress. His career in public service began under the Clinton administration, where he served as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and as a Senior Economist and Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Orszag has also made notable contributions to academic literature, including hundreds of published articles and several books. As a senior fellow at Brookings, he co-founded and directed the Hamilton Project, and he currently serves as a Board Director for the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Orszag graduated summa cum laude in Economics from Princeton University and obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar.

Barbara Mendelson’s practice involves advising foreign and U.S. banks in a variety of complex regulatory matters, including bank holding company control, investments and other matters, sales and acquisitions of U.S. banking and nonbanking firms, Dodd-Frank Act issues, applications to federal and state bank regulators for the expansion of activities and new products, Bank Secrecy Act and OFAC matters, custody and over-the-counter and exchange-based trading of various instruments and derivatives. She has represented foreign banks in their U.S. operations for more than 35 years. Prior to entering private practice, she was an attorney at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Barbara has been recognized in the industry for her exceptional legal work, including being named by Crain’s New York Business as one of the Notable Women in Law in both its 2021 and 2019 editions, and in 2020 she was named “Compliance Lawyer of the Year” by C5’s Women in Compliance Awards. She has also been selected as Euromoney Legal Media Group's 2020 Banking and Finance Attorney of the Year, and was awarded “Best in Financial Services” in 2019 and 2017. Barbara was also awarded the "Lawyer of the Year" designation by Best Lawyers in America (2019 and 2013) in the category of Financial Services Regulation Law (New York City). In addition, she has been recommended by Chambers USA, Chambers Global, Legal 500 US, IFLR1000, Best Lawyers in America, and Who’s Who Legal: Banking. In their 2023 guide, Who’s Who Legal listed Barbara as a “Thought Leader” in their Global Banking Regulation Review, which features the world’s foremost banking regulatory lawyers who have obtained the largest number of nominations from peers, corporate counsel, and other market sources.

She is a member of the New York City Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Barbara also serves as president of the board of trustees of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City.