Robert R. Glauber ’61 will step down as head of the country’s largest private financial regulatory firm to take a post as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (HLS).

Glauber has been chairman and CEO of NASD, the former administrative body of the NASDAQ stock market, since 2000.

Glauber, who has served on the NASD Board of Governors since 1996, announced that he would move up his retirement date from the end of the calendar year at a NASD board meeting on July 20.

“Leaving now will allow me to join the Board of Directors of Freddie Mac, which I anticipate doing in September, consider a couple of other corporate board opportunities, and return to Harvard a bit sooner,” he said in an NASD press release.

Mary Schapiro, the president of NASD’s regulatory policy and oversight division, will assume Glauber’s post as CEO.

According to the HLS website, Glauber will be co-teaching a course titled “Capital Market Regulation” with Nomura Professor of International Financial Systems Hal S. Scott in spring 2007.

Glauber, who spent his undergraduate years in Dunster House, received a doctorate in business administration from Harvard Business School in 1965.

He held HBS positions as an instructor in 1964, an assistant professor from 1965 to 1968, an associate professor from 1968 until 1972, and a full professor until 2000. Glauber was also an adjunct lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government until 2000.

NASD, facing the possibility of an SEC investigation into conflicts of interest among private regulatory firms, announced in April 2005 that it would abandon “all meaningful ownership” in the NASDAQ exchange.

In his press release, Glauber said he “came to NASD six years ago with the goal of transitioning the organization away from owning markets, and focusing it solely on its regulatory mission.”

“NASD has succeeded in making that transformation,” he said.

—NICHOLAS K. TABOR