Raymond W. Smith
Raymond W. Smith is the Chairman of Rothschild Continuation Investments, Founding Partner of Arlington Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Chairman of Verizon Ventures.
Raymond W. Smith rose from an entry level management trainee at Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania to the Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic). Prior to becoming chairman and chief executive officer of Bell Atlantic, Ray held the titles of president and chief financial officer. He also served as AT&T’s director of finance.
Under his leadership, Smith refashioned the company into the largest communications corporation in the country, positioning the firm globally in the expanding markets of the future. During his tenure, Bell Atlantic acquired NYNEX and GTE, two of the largest transactions in business history. In 1998 Fortune magazine listed Bell Atlantic as the number one communications company in terms of increased shareholder value over the previous ten years. It ranked 17th out of the top 1000 companies.
In 1999, he retired as chairman of New York-based Verizon after ten years as the corporation's top officer.
Following his retirement from Verizon, he founded Arlington Capital Partners (ACP), an investment company that has successfully completed two offerings: ACP I at $450M and ACP II at $650M.
Smith also became the Chairman of Rothschild Inc. and N.M. Rothschild & Sons Canada Limited in 1999. He guided Rothschild’s presence in the Americas through the banking crisis without a single restatement or blemish.
He and his second wife, Phyllis, have five children and ten grandchildren between them. He has been a playwright, director, producer and actor in more than 50 productions in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. The Player’s Club of Swarthmore has named one of its theaters after him. He has also become a sought-after artist with scores of paintings.
As a poet, he has produced hundreds of offerings over the years, most recently in a book of his poetry, Songs of No Consequence. Also, he has written the following books and plays: Reigh’s Myth, The Burial of My Cat, Chamber Music, Dormont, Ask Not for Whom, The Warhol Unit, Egyptian Baskets, Janjaweed, The Fetal Pig, Time-X, The Most Eminent Saga of Harold Bluetooth, Arrival in Nine Hours, and Nineteeneleven.
He is a well-traveled scholar with special emphasis on the culture of Ancient Egypt. He negotiated a long term loan of a collection of Egyptian antiquities from Eton College to Johns Hopkins University. He has also traveled to Uganda, Viet Nam and Thailand with the Rockefeller Foundation and to China and the Middle East as a Special Envoy of the State Department. His most recent scholarly trip was to Antarctica.
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