NYSE Names Panel to Search for New Chief

The New York Stock Exchange named BlackRock Inc. Chairman Laurence Fink, who headed the committee that chose John Reed as interim chairman, to lead a nine-person group that will pick a permanent successor to Richard Grasso.

The panel, which intends to hire an executive search firm, also will decide whether to split the posts of chairman and chief executive, both of which were held by Grasso, Fink said.

The other committee members are former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright; TIAA-CREF CEO Herbert Allison; Van der Moolen Specialists USA Vice Chairman Robert Fagenson; Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin; former AOL Time Warner Inc. CEO Gerald M. Levin; Credit Suisse First Boston CEO John Mack; Reed; and Lawrence Sonsini, head of California law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.