THE education information for Richard Grasso, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, was inaccurate for nearly 10 years in “Who’s Who.” His bio is missing altogether from the 57th edition of the prestigious publication that was put out last fall.
“Who’s Who” says it generally gets its information from the people themselves, their companies or representatives.
The NYSE says it was the publisher, not it, that mistakenly gave Grasso a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Pace University that he didn’t have.
Pace confirms that Grasso completed 80 credits toward the 120-credit undergraduate degree before its records show he “transferred.” It couldn’t produce his grades.
Today an undergraduate can’t even get an accounting degree at Pace; the degree comes out of the school’s graduate program. Pace couldn’t say if an undergraduate accounting degree even existed when Grasso attended the school.
That same error is contained in biographical information carried by Bloomberg, which not only says Grasso has a “bachelors degree” from Pace but also mentions “Harvard Univ., 1985” on his education page. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)
Grasso’s biography suddenly disappeared from the latest edition of Marquis “Who’s Who” after someone engaged in a lawsuit with the exchange says he tipped off the book’s publishers that Grasso doesn’t have a B.S. from Pace or anywhere else.
“Who’s Who” can only say that the NYSE didn’t respond to its request for information for that edition and that Grasso’s omission was a “regrettable error.”
The B.S. degree from Pace University has been contained in Grasso’s “Who’s Who” bio since 1992, the 47th edition.
Each year “Who’s Who” says it sends out forms to people who are in the book asking for updated information. Parts of Grasso’s bio were changed each year, but the B.S. remained.
“We do not check, obviously,” said Ray Pellecchia, a spokesman for the exchange, in an e-mail. In another e-mail he said, “If these guys are telling you that we check it every year, they must be sending it to someone. Who? I don’t recall ever seeing it.”
He also said, “Maybe they got [it] wrong that he later received an honorary degree from Pace [among other universities]? Our bio, which is posted on NYSE.com, of course, does not claim a B.S.,” nor has it ever, Pellecchia added.
“But I appreciate your mentioning it, and I’ll call ‘Who’s Who’ and have them correct it,” he added.
The exchange’s official bio only mentions honorary degrees, including ones from Fordham Law, Pepperdine, NYU and Pace.
But Grasso received his honorary degree from Pace in 1995. So it’s tough to see how “Who’s Who” could have mixed up that education information in its 1992 book with something that didn’t happen for another three years.
“Who’s Who” says it doesn’t regularly check information provided to it. “We count on the person [in the bio] to spot things that are incorrect,” according to a source.
Grasso did attend the Advanced Management Program at Harvard, as did at least one other NYSE executive. The course now costs $49,000 and runs for two months in the fall. Attendees get a certificate at the end.
Although Grasso’s bio didn’t appear in last fall’s regular hardcover “Who’s Who,” it did appear on “Who’s Who in Finance and Industry” and in the online version of the regular “Who’s Who.”
In both those, Grasso’s bio takes out the B.S. and says only: “Pace U.; postgrad. cert. advanced mgmt., Harvard U., 1985.”
The word “postgrad” does not appear in the online literature for that Harvard certificate. And the way “Who’s Who” now has it, it would be easy to assume that Grasso had to graduate from Pace before he could “postgrad” at Harvard.
The NYSE might want to correct that, too, because “Who’s Who” seems to be screwing up left and right.