III
RAY
John

• 1. Early life and education
• 2. Career

John J. Ray III is an American attorney and insolvency professional. He specializes in recovering funds from failed corporations. He is currently the CEO of FTX. He was the CEO of Enron and oversaw its liquidation during its years in bankruptcy. He also worked on the bankruptcies of Nortel, Residential Capital, and Overseas Shipholding.

Early life and education

The son of a union plumber and his wife Florence, Ray grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts before studying at the University of Massachusetts and Drake University.

Career

From 1998 through 2002, Ray was the chief administrative officer and general counsel of Fruit of the Loom after the company declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999.

After Enron went into chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001, Ray was appointed the chairman of the reorganized company that recovered money for creditors. He served in that role from 2004 to 2009. Under Ray’s leadership, the company returned $828.9 million to its creditors, which Ray said was nearly 52 cents on the dollar.

Starting in 2010, Ray was the principal officer of the bankrupt Canadian telecommunications company Nortel.

In 2014, Ray was appointed as an independent board member for GT Advanced Technologies.

In 2016, Ray managed a trust which liquidated the assets of the major subprime mortgage services company Residential Capital.

On 11 November 2022, on the same day when cryptocurrency company FTX declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Ray succeeded Sam Bankman-Fried as the company's CEO. Six days later, in a filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Ray stated that in over 40 years of his experience in dealing with insolvencies, he had never encountered "such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here". In addition, he stated that FTX was managed by "a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals".

According to FTX's court disclosures, the company paid Ray a $200,000 retainer fee and $1,300 per hour.