Paul Schott Stevens
Former CEO of Global Financial Services Trade Association, Attorney, Senior Government Official
In 2020, Paul Schott Stevens retired after serving more than 16 years as President and CEO of the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the global association of the regulated fund industry. He was General Counsel of ICI from 1993 to 1997. Outside of ICI, Paul has had a varied career in private law practice, as corporate counsel and in senior government service. He was a partner in the financial services group of Dechert LLP, an international law firm, and chief counsel for mutual funds and international enterprise at Charles Schwab & Co. He served as Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to President Ronald Reagan, who appointed him as the first Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC) following the Iran-contra affair, and subsequently as head of the NSC’s 200-member policy and support staff. Upon leaving government service in 1989, Paul was awarded the Defense Department’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service, its highest civilian decoration.
Over his career, Stevens has been strongly committed to a range of professional, community, cultural and church activities. He chaired the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He also chaired the International Investment Funds Association, representing asset management associations from some 40 nations worldwide. For more than a decade, he was a member of the Finance Council of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington and served for many of those years as chair of its investment committee. He has been engaged in various capacities over many years in support of the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land, and in 2022 received the Custody’s “Grato Animo” award. Currently, in addition to Catholic Investment Services, he serves on the boards of The Catholic Distance University, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, and the Commissariat of the Holy Land USA.
Paul and his wife Joyce have been married for 43 years and have four sons and one grandson. He received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.