The Chance family has been involved with the Tarsus Club for several generations, dating back to the 1600s when the family was intrinsic to the formation of the British East India Company. After receiving a Doctorate of Law from Harvard, Murray Chance served as the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, a position in which he won two Distinguished Service medals. In 1969 he took over for his father as the Chairman of Chance Investments where he continues to serve on the board of directors. He has worked as an advisor to three sitting US presidents, and sits on the board of The Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the current co-chairman of the EU-Japan Business Dialogue Round Table and chairman of the European Academy of Business in Society. He is also a member of the board of numerous North American and European companies. In 2009, the newspaper EUobserver credited Chance as "one of the leading forces that helped create the euro in the 1990s".