Sarasota trust company leader, former FDIC chair announces retirement

Longtime banking executive and national public official Bill Isaac, whose career ran from chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. during the 1980s to helping grow a Sarasota trust firm in the 2020s, has announced his retirement.

Issac, who has lived in Sarasota’s Lido Shores neighborhood for some 20 years, in a waterfront home currently listed for sale for $13.9 million, had most recently been chairman of Sarasota Private Trust and Cleveland Private Trust. The trust entities offer wealth management, co-investing and trust services, in addition to advice in tax planning and philanthropy. The firms, including affiliates, have over $35 billion in assets under administration. 

Issac’s role in helping to launch and grow Sarasota Private Trust is part of a longer and larger relationship with Howard Milstein and the Milstein family, owners of New York Private Bank & Trust and Emigrant Bank. Issac served on the boards of those entities, too, which own parts of Sarasota Private Trust.

Howard Milstein noted Issac’s role in the firms and his career in an email announcing the retirement, saying he had completed an “extraordinary career. We wish him the very best in his retirement and thank him for his service to both our businesses and to our nation.”

Isaac, in the email and a post on LinkedIn, acknowledged the bookends of his career. “With bittersweet feelings, and with great gratitude, I share my decision to wind down my duties with Emigrant Bank, New York Private Trust and all other Milstein interests,” he writes. “It delights me to find the same cornerstones of integrity, ethics and family in my career’s ending chapters as I held dear during the early ones.” 

Isaac, 82, was born and raised in northwestern Ohio, in Bryan. The grandson of a Syrian immigrant, he earned an undergraduate degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and law degree from The Ohio State University. Career highlights include: 

• Began his career with Foley & Lardner, where he practiced general corporate law, specializing in banking law.
• Was vice president, general counsel and secretary of First Kentucky National Corp. and its subsidiaries, including First National Bank of Louisville and First Kentucky Trust Company.
• Appointed by Pres. Jimmy Carter to three-person FDIC board in 1978. 
• Named FDIC chair by Pres. Ronald Regan in 1980.
• Chaired the FDIC through 1985. 
• Helped lead the federal response to the 1980s banking and thrift crises. “Working closely with Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, I did my utmost to maintain stability in the financial and banking sectors amid more than 3,000 bank and thrift failures,” Isaac writes. “To this day, I am at a loss for words to express the immense honor and privilege this time holds for me.” 
• Founded The Secura Group in 1986. Secura was acquired by FTI Consulting in 2011, where Isaac served as senior managing director.
• Was chairman of Fifth Third Bancorp. 
• In 2010 he wrote the book “Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America.”
• His articles and commentaries have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Times, American Banker, The Hill and other leading publications.
• Co-founded the William Isaac & Michael Oxley Center for Business Leadership at Miami University in Ohio in 2016.