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Alum Rings NASDAQ Opening Bell

Bill Wreaks, a member of Washington and Lee’s Class of 1985, opened the NASDAQ OMX market on June 25.

Bill is chief executive officer of the Gramercy Institute, a group of marketers and related professionals from the world’s leading financial institutions. The organization is dedicated to upholding the highest level of professionalism and integrity–and to focusing leading financial marketers on new and innovative practices for the benefit of financial consumers and the industry at large.

In remarks prior to his bell ringing, Bill said that “marketing has never mattered more than it does today to the success of major financial firms around the world.”

After receiving his B.A. from W&L, Bill earned an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, where he focused on international business.

Bill was an early pioneer and advocate of digital media. In 2003 and 2004, he served as president of the Financial Communications Society, a non-profit, 225-member organization based in New York and founded in 1967.

Bill is a frequent interview subject on the marketing and media circuit. An interview with him and five other leading publishing executives was recently featured in Folio Magazine.

The Gramercy Institute produces approximately 25 forums, conferences and summits in the financial services marketing space each year in eight financial market hubs around the world. In addition, the institute produces the Gramercy Institute Financial Media Strategy Awards and Twenty Rising Stars in Financial Marketing. It also publishes the digital Journal of Financial Advertising & Marketing on matters of interest to senior marketers from major financial firms.

If you know any W&L alumni who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.