New York Stock Exchange interim chairman Mr John Reed today named candidates for a new board to replace the exchange's current board, which has been widely criticised for the remuneration of previous chairman Mr Richard Grasso.
There would be no fundamental change to the exchange's self-regulated status or the way in which stocks are traded, Mr Reed said.
The current board "did not serve the institution well," Mr Reed said at a media briefing at the NYSE's New York headquarters. The board was widely criticised for failing to rein in Mr Grasso's $188 million pay package and being too closely tied to the financial companies it regulates.
All 27 of the NYSE's current board have been asked to resign, Mr Reed said, and a majority already had resigned.
Under Mr Reed's proposals, the exchange will now have an eight-member board, made up of people with no ties to the exchange, and a further "board of executives" with about 20 people, which will include representatives of Wall Street firms, specialists and other interested parties.
The only holdovers from the old board to be named as nominees to the new board are Ms Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state, and Mr Herbert Allison, chairman of pension fund giant TIAA-CREF.
The other six nominees are: Sir Dennis Weatherstone, a former executive of bank JP Morgan; Mr Euan Baird, retired head of oil field services firm Schlumberger; Mr Robert Shapiro, retired head of Monsanto; Mr Marshall Carter, retired head of State Street; Ms Shirley Anne Jackson, head of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Mr James McDonald, chief executive of Rockefeller & Co., which manages money for the Rockefeller family and other companies and wealthy people.