William J. Forgione

Bio

Prior to joining Saxena White, William Forgione served as a senior legal executive with Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (“TIAA”) and its subsidiaries for over 25 years. While at TIAA, he held a variety of leadership positions, including Executive Vice President and General Counsel with TIAA Global Asset Management and Nuveen, a leading financial services group of companies that provides investment advice and portfolio management through TIAA and numerous investment advisors. He oversaw the legal, compliance, and corporate governance aspects associated with the organization’s $900 billion investment portfolios and asset management businesses, including TIAA’s general account, various separate accounts, registered and unregistered funds, and institutional investment mandates.

Under Mr. Forgione’s leadership, TIAA was actively involved in a number of significant investment litigation matters in order to recover the maximum amount for the benefit of its investment portfolios and the beneficial owners. These included acting as lead plaintiff in class action lawsuits, initiating proxy contests, pursuing direct actions where appropriate, and asserting appraisal rights when it felt the consideration to be paid to shareholders in connection with various merger and acquisition activity involving portfolio companies was inadequate.

Mr. Forgione also served as Deputy General Counsel to TIAA, where among his many responsibilities, he acted as a strategic partner and advisor to the heads of TIAA’s pension and insurance business lines. He also served as a member of TIAA’s Senior Leadership Team, actively participating on a number of management committees. In addition, Mr. Forgione has valuable corporate governance experience, having advised and served on a number of boards, including Nuveen, the Westchester Group, several foreign operating subsidiaries of TIAA, as well as various Risk Management, Investment, Asset-Liability, and Audit Committees. He also served as lead counsel on several large business acquisitions.

After graduating summa cum laude from Binghamton University with a B.S. in Accounting, Mr. Forgione received his J.D. degree from Boston University. Among many industry associations, he has served as President and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Life Insurance Counsel, President and Trustee of the American College of Investment Counsel, and Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Life Insurance Council of New York. Mr. Forgione has spoken at many industry conferences and seminars, taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Accounting and Law, and has won awards such as Charlotte Business Journal’s Corporate Counsel Award for his success in corporate law.

Prior to joining TIAA, Mr. Forgione was associated with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, and Csaplar & Bok, where he practiced in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance.