Harvey Pitt, 78, former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman and longtime advisory board member of JBS USA, died May 30, 2023.
Pitt was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 28, 1945. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1961. He then graduated from Brooklyn College with a bachelor's degree in 1965, and from St. John's University School of Law with a Juris Doctor in 1968. He later received the Presidential Medal of Distinction from Brooklyn College in 2003, and an honorary LLD from St. John's University School of Law.
From 1968 to 1978, Pitt served on the staff of the SEC and became the agency’s youngest general counsel in 1975 at age 30. He served as SEC chairman for 18 months between 2001 and 2003, overseeing the agency in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the response to the corporate accounting crises of the 1990s. Later in life, Pitt was a columnist with Compliance Week and, at the time of his death, was CEO of the strategic consulting firm that he founded, Kalorama Partners LLC. At various times in his life, he taught at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Pitt was a member of the JBS USA Advisory Board since 2017, providing the company with counsel and strategic guidance on compliance, corporate governance, risk management and related matters.
A funeral service for will be held Monday, June 5, 2023 at 1 p.m. at Washington Hebrew Congregation, 3935 Macomb Street NW, Washington, DC, 20016. After the funeral service will be an interment at Oak Hill Cemetery, 3001 R Street NW, Washington, DC, 20007.
