Richard J. Lampen
President and Chief Executive Officer
Richard J. Lampen is our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer as well as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of our subsidiary, New Valley LLC, and is a member of our Board of Directors. Mr. Lampen also serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors of Douglas Elliman Inc. (NYSE: DOUG), a leading residential real estate brokerage company offering a comprehensive suite of technology real estate services and investments, and as a member of the Board of Managers of its subsidiary, Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC. From September 2006 until its acquisition in February 2020, Mr. Lampen served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services (“Ladenburg”), a publicly-traded diversified financial services company, which was acquired by Advisor Group, a portfolio company of Reverence Capital Partners. Mr. Lampen also served as Chairman of Ladenburg Thalmann from September 2018 until the company was acquired. From October 2008 until October 2019, Mr. Lampen served as President and Chief Executive Officer and was a member of the Board of Directors of Castle Brands Inc. (“Castle”), a publicly-traded spirits company, prior to its acquisition by Pernod Ricard. Vector held an approximate 10% interest in Ladenburg and an approximate 8% equity interest in Castle.
Mr. Lampen serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Frost Science Museum in Miami and as a member of the National Board of the American Jewish Committee. Mr. Lampen is the past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Financial Services Institute and the past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Ransom Everglades School and is a director and past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Miami Children’s Museum.
Prior to joining Vector in 1995, Mr. Lampen was a partner at Steel Hector & Davis, a law firm located in Miami, Florida. Previously, Mr. Lampen was a Managing Director at Salomon Brothers Inc. Mr. Lampen has served as a director of a number of companies, including Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc., Castle Brands Inc., Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC, New Valley Corporation, U.S. Can Corporation, Spec’s Music Inc. and The International Bank of Miami, N.A., as well as a court-appointed independent director of Trump Plaza Funding, Inc.
Mr. Lampen received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School.