Rockefeller CEO's death is an apparent suicide

James McDonald, president and chief executive of Rockefeller & Co. Inc., one of the country's largest multifamily of-fices, died on Sept. 13. He was 56. According to a story in The Wall Street Journal, it was an apparent suicide.
A friend of Mr. McDonald's family issued a statement last Monday that Mr. McDonald, who had been president and chief executive of Rockefeller since 2001, “took his own life,” the newspaper reported. According to the RIA Database, Rockefeller was the fourth-largest registered-independent-advisory firm in the country as of June 30, with $5.6 billion in total assets. A spokesman for Rockefeller said that Austin Shapard, the company's chief operating and financial officer, has assumed day-to-day leadership of the company on an interim basis. Rockefeller's board, led by chairman Colin Campbell and vice chair-man Mark F. Rockefeller, will continue to oversee management of the company, the spokes-man added. E-mail Charles Paikert at [email protected].