John Reed, the former chairman and CEO of Citigroup, will handle the reins of the New York Stock Exchange temporarily for a salary of $1 from September 30.
The NYSE board chose the interim leader following the furore that led to former NYSE chairman Richard Grasso being forced to resign. There were demands for Grasso's head after he collected a salary of $139.5 million, which included bonus and retirement benefits.
The 64-year-old Reed, who lost the power struggle to Sanford I Weill and quit Citi in 2000, said that his top priority as the NYSE chairman would be to strengthen the corporate governance structure at the exchange and to bring in more transparency to its operations.
He, however, did not comment on the circumstances in which Grasso had to quit the exchange.
Meanwhile, an NYSE panel, led by Laurence Fink, CEO of investment group BlackRock Inc, has been entrusted with the job of finding a permanent replacement for Grasso.