USC Price School of Public Policy

Frank Zerunyan

Frank Zerunyan

Senior Fellow
Director, Executive Education

Ralph and Goldy Lewis Hall 201A
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626

Phone: (213) 740-0036

Juris Doctor

Western State University

Expertise

Local Governments, Administrative Law, Public Private Partnerships, Leadership and Executive Education

Biographical sketch

Frank Vram Zerunyan, J.D. is a Senior Fellow and Director of Executive Education at the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy. His key areas of expertise include Local Governments, Public Private Partnerships, Civic Leadership, Land Use, Regulation and Executive Education. He teaches graduate courses on Intersectoral Leadership, Business and Public Policy, International Issues in Public Policy as well as International Laboratory.

Frank currently serves as the Mayor of Rolling Hills Estates, California. In his role as a public official, after serving as Chair of the Planning Commission in Rolling Hills Estates, Frank was elected to the City Council in 2003 and re-elected in 2007 and 2011. He previously served as Mayor in 2007-2008 and now serves on various regional boards, including law enforcement, sanitation, technology and transit. He has chaired and continues to chair select city government committees in Rolling Hills Estates.

Frank’s public service on various policy committees extends statewide with the California League of Cities, California Contract Cities Association and Southern California Association of Governments. In 2008, Frank was elected and assumed a leadership role as the 49th President of California Contracts Cities Association, the second largest municipal organization in the state of California with approximately 70 member cities and 10 million residents.

As a gubernatorial appointee under Governor Schwarzenegger, Frank was a state regulator serving on the Medical Board of California. He was elected by the Board to serve as its Vice President. After five years of service on the Medical Board, Frank’s term expired in June of 2011. His responsibilities on the Medical Board included the promulgation of regulation, professional discipline and the sixty million plus budget of the Medical Board.

Frank has more than 25 years of comprehensive and multi-sectorial experience as a lawyer, consultant, director, not for profit board member and public official. He was the managing partner and partner in two California boutique law firms before founding Public-Private Community Development LLC (PPCD); a policy-driven redevelopment company. PPCD’s partnerships with California P3 Infrastructure Group, LLC (CaP3i) and P3 Solutions Group, LLC (P3SG) are on the cutting edge of Public Private Partnerships focusing on rebuilding California’s infrastructure.

Frank has been honored as one of Southern California Magazine’s Super Lawyers since 2004 and Marquis’ Who’s Who in America and American Law for the last five consecutive years. In 2007, Frank was re-elected as chairman of the Board of Governors of the worldwide Armenian Bar Association. He also chaired the Daniel Freeman Hospitals Foundation in 2001 and oversaw the successful distribution of $8 million in gifts. In April 2009, Frank founded the Zerunyan Center for Business, Entrepreneurship and Community Development at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Library; the first Center of its kind in a California public library.

Frank earned his Juris Doctor degree from Western State University College of Law and his Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Long Beach. He also completed his advanced legal studies in Corporate Taxation at the University of Southern California Law Center. He is a graduate of California League of Cities’ Leadership Institute.