Norman Steisel

Norman Steisel is currently the Chairman and CEO of EnEssCo Strategies, a firm he founded originally in 1994 and to which he returned in 2008 to capitalize on opportunities in emerging “green” business venues.  EnEssCo Strategies provides strategic, business development and marketing, and financial consulting services to firms engaged in the provision of environmental services and products, including waste handling and disposal, water supply and wastewater treatment and alternative clean energy technologies and production. Recent client engagements include providing services for: a development firm establishing a  short-sea service  to transship   foreign arriving  containerized goods  at the Port of New York destined  to New England-based customers  utilizing a freight ferry to replace more costly traditional truck delivery and alleviate congestion and pollution created by the vehicular traffic on the I-95 corridor, a leading firm with a commercially viable, proprietary bio-mass technology that produces a lower cost  replacement fuel for traditional heating oil products  accompanied by significant reductions in  combustion emissions,  a development entity creating an eco-park in New Orleans for solid waste processing and  new product manufacturing from post-consumer recyclables including  the deployment of an anaerobic waste-to-energy digestion facility for  treating the organic fraction of the waste stream.

From 2003 to 2008, Mr. Steisel served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.  He was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the exchange’s strategic plan and initiatives into day-to-day operations.  The plan designed to extract value by leveraging regulatory licenses, enhancing technology assets and offering innovative trading modalities and products has produced  several benefits during his tenure:  the organization was restructured from a not-for-profit membership to a for-profit stock corporation, facilitating investments by six bulge bracket firms, increasing its core equity options business’ market share from 8% to 15% by deployment of new technology platforms - - resulting in an improvement in the P & L from a  $1.0 million loss in 2005 to $26 million profit in 2007.  He oversaw the enhancement and modernization of the exchange’s equity and futures businesses.  Mr. Steisel was a key member of the exchange’s strategic management team participating in analyzing opportunities and direct negotiations with several entities interested in purchasing the exchange which was ultimately sold to NASDAQ OMX for $697 million, a thirty-fold increase in 2005 enterprise value.   He was responsible for coordinating PHLX involvement in transition planning and integration activities with NASDAQ OMX.

From 1994 to 2003, Mr. Steisel was President of EnEssCo Strategies, Inc., a firm providing management and consulting services to senior level executives of firms and industries in government-regulated sectors undertaking strategic, operational and financial transitional activities.  EnEssCo has been engaged to develop and implement strategic marketing and financial plans for:  the American subsidiary of the world’s leading water/waste water treatment firm, a leading start-up bio-tech firm attempting to exploit pharmaceutical and environmental application of its proprietary technology, a leading outsourcing services provider to implement a pharmaceutical and medical material supply chain management subsidiary, and a leading vendor of advanced wireless voice and data telecommunications technologies with licensing and deployment of their services in municipal facilities.

Prior to this position, Steisel served from 1990-1994 as First Deputy Mayor of the City of New York.  In this capacity he was the CEO of the city government responsible for day-to-day management of all governmental operations, and the oversight of a  $30 billion annual operating budget and a four-year $20 billion capital program.  He was responsible for streamlining operations and systems that resulted in annual budget reductions of  $2.0 billion.  In addition, Mr. Steisel reversed the decade-long trend of local taxes consuming an increasing share of Gross City Product (“GCP”).  Mr. Steisel directed the out-sourcing of numerous governmental functions:  fleet procurement, vehicle and facility maintenance and treasury functions.  He oversaw the city’s emergency coordinated response activities, supervising in that role the response to the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

From 1986-1989, Mr. Steisel was a Senior Vice President at the investment banking firm, Lazard Freres & Co.  Mr. Steisel was responsible for coordinating the firm’s environmental corporate and municipal project financing activities, financing more than $2.0 billion of client needs.  He served as an advisor to several American municipalities and counties and to a number of the world’s leading waste disposal, water treatment, hazardous waste remediation and air pollution control firms providing assistance with merger and acquisition activities, recapitalizations, and debt issuance.  

While at Lazard, from 1988-1990, Mr. Steisel served (pro bono) as the first Chairman of the School Construction Authority, an independent authority chartered by New York State charged with responsibility for the design, construction, modernization and rehabilitation of public schools in New York City.  He oversaw the creation of the Authority, recruited top agency executives, established its budget and developed staffing patterns, directed implementation of project management and cost-accounting controls and information monitoring systems, and directed development of architectural and construction contract preparation, bid and award procedures.  Within one year, $1 billion of construction activity was underway.

Prior to his position with Lazard, Mr. Steisel served from 1979 to 1986 as Commissioner of Sanitation of New York – the longest serving official in the 20th century.  Mr. Steisel was responsible for overall management of the $600 million enterprise and distinguished himself by introducing numerous productivity initiatives— the most noteworthy being the introduction of performance-based compensation program aligned with the replacement of three man refuse collection crews with two-man crews resulting in annual savings of $100 million. His advocacy of the bottle bill was decisively pivotal to is enactment into law, and represented the beginnings of the City’s efforts to encourage recycling intiatives.. Mr. Steisel was responsible for introducing the  City’s curbside collection program of recyclable materials from households. He was also responsible for implementing a 10-year; $2.5 billion capital program to rebuild the city’s failing waste disposal system that included a complete environmentally-compliant upgrading of its landfill operations and the introduction of privately financed recycling and waste-to-energy facilities.  In this capacity, Mr. Steisel was a founding member and served as the first President of the US Conference of Mayors National Resource Recovery Association, a consortium of public officials, technology providers, financial institutions, law firms and environmental consultants, that successfully lobbied the Congress to offer tax-exempt financing and grants for the construction of privately owned and operated waste-to-energy facilities as well as to establish attainable stack emissions and plant residue pollution control standards under the Clean Air Act.

From 1974 to 1979, Mr. Steisel served as New York City’s First Deputy Budget Director and oversaw the massive retrenchment in the city’s budget, workforce and services, resulting from its near default and loss of access to the capital markets.  He also directed the introduction of integrated automated budgeting, accounting, payroll and procurement systems.

From 1974 to 1976, Mr. Steisel was Vice President of Griffehagen-Kroeger, Inc., (the predecessor organization to Hamilton, Rabinowitz and Altshuler) where he was in charge of consulting services for local, state and federal governments and to private sector firms with the development and implementation of strategic business and marketing plans and proposals to public sector clients.

From  1972  to 1974, Mr. Steisel served as the first civilian head of the policy, management and crime analysis division  of New York City’s  Police Department , responsible for developing cost/benefit models to evaluate  and improve police strategic deployment and tactical operational processes .  Prior to that appointment, commencing in 1969  he was employed by the New York City Office of Budget and Management  where he headed the Criminal Justice Agencies Task Force responsible for the analysis  and preparation  of the budgets of the police, corrections, probation, district attorneys and courts.  He was also the principal policy analyst  and planner for the City Fire Department, in charge of developing simulation models of the agency’s firefighting operations used to introduce  significant  improvements in response times,  increased productivity and  budgetary savings as well as for deployment of  new firehouses.  

Mr. Steisel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Pratt Institute and Master of Science degree from Yale University.  He has taught courses in public policy analysis and decision-making at Yale School of Organization and Management, Harvard Kennedy School for Public Policy, Columbia University, New York University School of Law, and Baruch College, CUNY.