Charles E. F. Millard

Charles E. F. Millard is an American political figure and business executive specializing in pensions and investments. He is the former Director of the United States Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Appointed by President George W. Bush, Millard was the first Director of the PBGC to be Presidentially appointed and confirmed by the United States Senate. As Director, Millard was the chief executive officer of the PBGC and carried the rank of Under Secretary.

Private Sector
Millard serves as a Trustee-Director for Independent Governance Group, a UK-based pension services firm. From 2011 until 2016 he was Managing Director and Head of Pension Relations with Citigroup, where he oversaw relationships with pension investors around the world. Millard is an independent non-executive member of the Board of Directors of Mount Logan Re Ltd.,a Bermuda-based reinsurance firm. In the spring of 2024, Millard was approved by the Bermuda Monetary Authority and was appointed an independent non-executive member of the Board of Directors of 777 Re Ltd., a troubled Bermuda-based reinsurance firm. Millard is also a consultant/advisor for multiple companies through Cardinal Advisors LLC, and serves on the Board of Directors of Ross Corporate Services, a UK-based pension services firm. He has also been an advisor for McKinsey, AQR Capital, and Amundi.

In his role at Citigroup, Millard led international pension conferences and was a leading speaker at numerous pension-related conferences around the country. In March 2016, Millard led the publication of the report "The Coming Pensions Crisis." The report was noteworthy for highlighting $78 trillion in unfunded retirement obligations in twenty countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report also advocated the development of more pooled defined contribution systems such as Collective Defined Contribution, Target Benefit, and Defined Ambition as methods to increase retirement security.

This led to Millard's service on the "Project Expert Community," for the World Economic Forum's paper entitled "Investing in (and for) Our Future."

During his time with Citigroup he taught at the Yale School of Management on pensions and public policy.

Earlier in his career in the private sector, Millard served as a Managing Director at both Lehman Brothers and Prudential Securities, and immediately prior to joining the PBGC, Millard was a Managing Director at Broadway Partners, a national real estate investment and management firm in New York. Millard also served as an attorney with Davis Polk & Wardwell where his activities included precedent-setting constitutional litigation in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Public Sector
Under Rudolph Giuliani, Millard served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Chairman of the New York City Industrial Development Agency. In that role, he concluded numerous negotiations and transactions that led to the redevelopment of 42nd Street and Times Square. His work included negotiations with Reuters, Conde Nast headquarters tower, the New Amsterdam Theater, and numerous other sites up and down 42nd Street and Times Square.

He was responsible for negotiations with some of the city’s largest employers, including Merrill Lynch and AIG, to keep thousands of jobs in New York City. As President of the EDC, he was also the landlord for Fulton Fish Market, South Street Seaport and 10 million square feet of occupied real estate. He reorganized the agency and created a system of performance reviews that resulted in numerous categories of improvement. He also privatized the then-city-owned United Nations Hotel.

Millard was twice elected to the New York City Council, and was the first Republican elected Councilman from Manhattan in twenty-five years. In that role he drafted the original legislation to eliminate pornography stores from many New York neighborhoods.

Millard also ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1994 against Representative Carolyn Maloney.

In 1979–80, he worked as a VISTA volunteer in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and in 1982–83, he served as Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs for Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick.

Tenure at the PBGC
During his tenure at PBGC, the agency's deficit shrank from $18.9 billion to $11.2 billion in 2008.

The PBGC is governed by a three-person Board; the Secretaries of Treasury, Commerce, and Labor. In February 2008, the Board adopted a new investment policy presented to it by Millard. The investment policy intended to put 45 percent of the Corporation's $55 billion in equities, 45 percent in fixed income assets, and 10 percent in alternative investments. No assets were transitioned into equities during fiscal year 2008 and the PBGC only began the transition of some assets from fixed-income to equities in late 2008. The New York Times noted in May 2009, that the PBGC had not fully implemented this transition.

Some proposed that the new policy was still relatively conservative when compared to private pension funds, according to "Pensions and Investments", a trade publication. Ron Gebhardtsbauer, former PBGC actuary and head of the Actuarial Science Program at Penn State's Smeal College of Business, stated on June 16th, 2010, "If the PBGC had followed Millard and invested in stocks in 2009, it could have $10 billion more in assets today."

In May 2009, The New York Times reported that Millard was criticized by PBGC's Inspector General for certain ethical matters related to Millard's relationships with companies and executives involved with the award of a PBGC contract. Millard relied on his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before a Senate investigative committee. March 2010, the Inspector General advised Senators Grassley, Baucus, Enzi, and Harkin that the investigation was completed and no charges would be filed.

Media Contributions
He is a frequent commentator and contributor on matters of financial and retirement policy and has regularly appeared on CNN, Fox Business news, CNBC and has been published in Pensions & Investments, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, and elsewhere on a variety of pension topics.

Early life and education
Millard obtained a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, with membership in Phi Beta Kappa from the College of the Holy Cross and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where each year he was ranked a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

From 2005 to 2006, Mr. Millard wrote a regular column in the New York Post.

Personal
Millard and his wife are parents of nine children.