Board of Directors

Howard M. Lorber serves as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Douglas Elliman Inc., and as Executive Chairman of its subsidiary Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC. Mr. Lorber has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Vector Group Ltd. since January 2006.

Throughout his career, Mr. Lorber has successfully led numerous corporations and, at different times, held positions simultaneously. He serves as Executive Chairman of Nathan’s Famous Inc. (NASDAQ: NATH) and a director of Clipper Realty, Inc. (NYSE: CLPR). He previously served as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE American: LTS) from September 2006 until February 2020, when the company was acquired by Advisor Group, a portfolio company of Reverence Capital Partners. In 2017, Mr. Lorber received a Presidential appointment to serve as Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He also serves on the board of Garden of Dreams, as Chairman of Southampton Hospital Foundation, and Co-Chairman of the Silver Shield Foundation–a non-profit organization that provides financial assistance towards the educational costs of children of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

Mr. Lorber holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Master of Science degree in Taxation, and an Honorary Doctorate from Long Island University, where he is also a trustee.

Richard J. Lampen serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Douglas Elliman Inc. and as a member of our Board of Directors. Mr. Lampen was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Vector Group Ltd. in January 2021 and has served as Vector’s Executive Vice President since 1995. Mr. Lampen has been a director of Vector since January 2021 and also serves as a member of the Board of Managers of our subsidiary, Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC.

Most recently, Mr. Lampen served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services (“Ladenburg”), a publicly traded diversified financial services company, from September 2006 to February 2020 when the company was acquired by Advisor Group, a portfolio company of Reverence Capital Partners. Mr. Lampen also served as Chairman of Ladenburg Thalmann from September 2018 until the company was acquired. From October 2008 until October 2019, Mr. Lampen served as President and Chief Executive Officer and was a member of the Board of Directors of Castle Brands Inc. (“Castle”), a publicly traded spirits company, prior to its acquisition by Pernod Ricard. Vector held an approximate 10% interest in Ladenburg and an approximate 8% equity interest in Castle.

Mr. Lampen serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Frost Science Museum in Miami and as a member of the National Board of the American Jewish Committee. Mr. Lampen is the past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Financial Services Institute and the past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Ransom Everglades School and is a director and past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Miami Children’s Museum.

Prior to joining Vector in 1995, Mr. Lampen was a partner at Steel Hector & Davis, a law firm located in Miami, Florida. Previously, Mr. Lampen was a Managing Director at Salomon Brothers Inc. Mr. Lampen has served as a director of a number of companies, including Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc., Castle Brands Inc., Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC, New Valley Corporation, U.S. Can Corporation, Spec’s Music Inc. and The International Bank of Miami, N.A., as well as a court-appointed independent director of Trump Plaza Funding, Inc.

Mr. Lampen received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School.

Ronald J. Kramer has held senior executive officer roles at a number of corporations and brings to the Board extensive experience in all aspects of finance and business transactions. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Griffon Corporation (NYSE: GFF), a diversified management and holding company, since April 2008, a director since 1993 and Chairman of the Board since January 2018.

Previously, Mr. Kramer was Vice Chairman of the Griffon Board from 2003 until January 2018. From 2002 through March 2008, he was President and a director of Wynn Resorts, Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN), a developer, owner and operator of destination casino resorts. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Kramer was a Managing Director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, an investment banking firm, and its predecessor Wasserstein Perella & Co. In addition to Griffon Corporation, he is currently a member of the board of directors of each of Business Development Corporation of America and Franklin BSP Capital Corporation.

Michael Liebowitz is an entrepreneur, private investor and seasoned business executive with extensive experience founding, acquiring, and monetizing businesses in the insurance and financial industries. In the past 25 years, Mr. Liebowitz has founded or acquired many companies, including Harbor Group Consulting LLC, National Financial Partners Corp. (NYSE: NFP), Innova Risk Management (“Innova”), High Street Valuations and New Beginnings Acquisition Corp. (NYSE American: NBA) (“NBA”). He currently serves as President and Chief Executive of the Harbor Group Division of Alliant (and Managing Director and Executive Vice President of Alliant) and High Street Valuations; and, is the principal shareholder of Open Acq LLC. Previously, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Harbor and Innova until 2018 and 2019, respectively, when they were acquired by Alliant as well as NBA from October 2020 to August 2021.

He currently serves on the boards of Airspan Network Holdings Inc. (NYSE American: MIMO) and Nocopi Technologies Inc. (OTC Pink: NNUP), and previously served on the boards of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE American: LTS) and The Hilb Group. Mr. Liebowitz has also acted as an advisor to many of the largest financial services companies around the globe on their complex insurance matters within their investment banking/M&A groups.

Mr. Liebowitz graduated from CW Post College-LI University with a B.S. in Finance.

Lynn Mestel is recognized as an entrepreneur and visionary in the legal recruiting and staffing industry, where she founded two companies and served as their Chief Executive Officer for more than two decades.

In 1987, she founded Mestel & Company, a consultancy firm placing attorneys in all disciplines as well as advising on law firm mergers and acquisitions and, in 1993, she founded Hire Counsel, which provided temporary legal staffing and e-discovery managed review to a nationwide clientele of law firms, corporations and government agencies. In 2011, Ms. Mestel combined both companies (HCMC Legal, Inc.) brought in private equity investors, Long Point Capital and created a 100% ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) providing equity participation and profit sharing to both full time and temporary employees. She remained as Chief Executive Officer of both Mestel & Company and Hire Counsel until 2017 and served until 2023 as Non-Executive Chair of the Board of both companies focusing on strategic direction, mergers and acquisitions and long-term growth.

Prior to founding Mestel & Company and Hire Counsel, Ms. Mestel was an advertising executive with each of DDB Worldwide Communications Group Ltd. and Saatchi & Saatchi, both of which are internationally respected advertising firms.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and a Juris Doctorate from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She also attended The Julliard School.

Wilson L. White brings to the Board a strong background in computer engineering and the technology and legal sectors. He currently serves as Senior Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL), where he is the global policy lead for Google’s Android, Hardware and Ads businesses. He has also served on the Board of Vector Group Ltd. since June 2021.

Prior to being named to his current position in 2013, he served as Patent Litigation Counsel at Google from 2011 to 2013 and was a Senior Associate at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP from 2007 to 2011. He also served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Alexander Williams, Jr. of the U.S. District Court of Maryland from 2006 to 2007.

Mr. White is engaged in numerous philanthropic and community activities. He currently serves on the Boards of the University of North Carolina School of Law Foundation and the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics Foundation, and served as Board Chair of the Black Bank Fund until 2022, which aims to raise and invest $250 million into Black banks throughout the United States by 2025.

Mr. White earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University, where he was a Park Scholar, and received his Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Mark D. Zeitchick has extensive experience as a business executive in the financial services industry where he enjoyed a 27-year career as an executive of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE American: LTS) and its predecessors. During his tenure, he served as Executive Vice President of Ladenburg Thalmann from 2006 to February 2020. He also served as director of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services from 1999 until February 2020 and of Castle Brands Inc. (NYSE American: ROX) from March 2014 until October 2019.