BY WALTER OPINDE

The investment banker, Frank Savage, was born on 10^th July, 1938, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina to Grace Savage and Frank Savage, Sr. When Savage was merely 6 months old, his mother and his twin sister, Frances, moved to Washington, D.C., where Savage’s mother opened up a beauty salon. In 1961, Savage earned his B.A. degree from Howard University, and in 1964, he received his M.A. degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University.

By 1962, Savage joined Crossroads Africa where he was assigned, along with 250 other students, to build tennis courts at an all-boys school in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Upon earning his M.A. degree in 1964, Savage joined Citibank, as the first African-American in its international division, and worked in the Middle East and Africa. By the dawn of 1970, Savage joined Equitable Life Insurance as president of Equico Capital Corporation; the largest Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Corporation in the U.S. In 1973, Savage joined TAW International Leasing as the Executive Vice-President. He then proceeded to become vice-chairman of the board and head of international operations for Equitable Capital Management Corporation.

Later, in 1987, Savage was named senior vice-president of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States (now the AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company). In 1992, he became the chairman of the “Equitable Capital Management Corporation,” where he spearheaded the firm’s global investment management business. Following the merger of Equitable Capital Management Corporation and Alliance Capital Management International in 1993, he served as chairman emeritus of Alliance Capital. In 1998, Savage became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and in 2001, he resigned from Alliance Capital to form the Africa Millennium Fund. After the events of 11^th September, 2001, Savage delayed his plans for the Africa Millennium Fund and started Savage Holdings, where he serves as the CEO.

Savage is the chairman emeritus of the SAIS Advisory Board and Howard University’s board of trustees. He has also served on the boards of Bloomberg LP, New York Academy of Medicine, Lockheed Martin, Qualcomm, and the New York Philharmonic. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University and an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Howard University. In addition, Savage won the Lord Nelson Trophy as part of the 2003 Antigua Race Week Regatta, the premier sailing event in the Caribbean.

Frank Savage, who served from 1994 to 2004 and seven years as chairman starting in 1997, is credited with spearheading the widely successful Campaign for Howard. He is chief executive officer of Savage Holdings LLC, a global financial services company. Before forming the Savage Holdings, he was chairman of Alliance Capital Management International, a division of Alliance Capital Management, a $700 billion asset management subsidiary of AXA Equitable Life Assurance Company. In 1999, he established the Frank Savage Endowed Scholars Program in the School of Business with a $200,000 gift.

Frank has a distinguished career in international banking, corporate finance, and global investment management. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University, a Master of Arts degree from the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Read more of Frank’s story via:

https://www.howard.edu/secretary-trustees_bios-savage.htm.

https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=546054&privcapId=1063882

http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/frank-savage