Christopher B. Burnham joined the Deutsche Bank as a Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM), effective November 15, 2006. Burnham is responsible for developing key client relationships as well as undertaking a variety of special projects. He also serves on DeAM's Global Operating Committee.
Burnham was appointed Under Secretary General of the United Nations for Management by Kofi Annan on June 1, 2005. Mr. Burnham was the senior most American in the United Nations Secretariat. He was tasked by Secretary General Annan with overhauling the accountability and transparency of the United Nations.
Within one year of his appointment Mr. Burnham has led in the creation of a new UN Ethics Office, the adoption of new International Public Sector Accounting Standards, and he created and produced the first comprehensive consolidated annual report in the history of the United Nations. In addition, he drafted on behalf of the Secretary-General, a new whistleblower protection policy which has received independent recognition as the “gold standard” of such policies, and he led reform of new financial disclosure reporting by senior United Nations officials and staff.
Mr. Burnham joined the United Nations after serving as acting Under Secretary of State for Management for Condoleezza Rice, and as Assistant Secretary of State for Resource Management and Chief Financial Officer of the State Department for General Colin Powell. Mr. Burnham joined the Department of State in September 2001.
Under Mr. Burnham's leadership, the State Department rebuilt all global financial operations, consolidating all budgeting, accounting and disbursing, strategic planning, budget and performance integration, and global financial operations. A two-decade old Wang-based accounting system was replaced with one integrated Web-based global financial reporting system. All budgeting was linked to performance measures for all aspects of the Department, and a business planning process was implemented for all bureaus and embassies. In addition, the Department produced the first joint performance plans with USAID, the first joint annual report on performance and reporting with USAID, and also for the first time, the Department eliminated all material weakness from its financial audit, and won the most prestigious award in government accounting and reporting three years in a row (one of only three departments to do so).
Prior to joining the Department of State, Mr. Burnham had a distinguished career in business and public service, including as President and Chief Executive Officer of Columbus Circle Investors, at the time PIMCO's largest equity management subsidiary, and as Vice Chairman of PIMCO mutual fund group. In 1994 Mr. Burnham was elected, Treasurer of the State of Connecticut, and earlier in his career was elected to three terms as a Connecticut State Representative, where he served as assistant minority leader.
Mr. Burnham joined PIMCO in 1997 where he was recruited and tasked with turning around a struggling $12 billion asset management company with a difficult corporate governance structure. Mr. Burnham divided the company into thirds, selling a trust company business and defined benefit business to management and portfolio managers, and retained the defined contribution business around which he then built a new far more successful company, PIMCO Equity Advisors.
As Treasurer of Connecticut from 1995 to 1997, Mr. Burnham inherited the worst performing state pension fund in the country over any time period, and a $7 billion unfunded liability in the workers compensation second injury fund.
Moving quickly, Mr. Burnham restructured the Treasury in his first 12 months in office, reducing the number of positions by 25% and executing the largest pension fund restructuring, at that time. He built an “insurance company” around the unfunded liabilities of the Second Injury Fund system, reducing the liability within one year by 90%, and lowered the tax levied on Connecticut business to fund the system, by 25%--the first reduction in its 50-year history. In a 1998 report, Connecticut 's most prestigious think tank, the Connecticut Policy and Economic Council, called Mr. Burnham's reforms the “most significant government success in 20 years.”
Within two years after the pension fund restructuring, performance went from being the worst performing in the country to the top 25%, where it remained for eight years.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Burnham was an investment banker with CS First Boston, and with Advest, Inc.
A twenty-three year veteran of the United States Marine Corps Reserve, in 1990 he volunteered for active duty and served as an infantry platoon commander in the Gulf War. He and his men were part of the lead Allied forces to reach and liberate Kuwait City on February 27, 1991.
