James G. Rickards
Senior Managing Director
jrickards@tangentcapital.comJames G. Rickards is a seasoned counselor, investment banker and risk manager with over thirty-five years experience in capital markets including all aspects of portfolio management, risk management, product structure, financing, regulation and operations. Mr. Rickards’ market experience is focused in alternative investing and derivatives in global markets. He has also served as General Counsel at several alternative asset management companies and a stock exchange facility and is expert in fund governance and international fund structures.
Mr. Rickards' career spans the period since 1976 during which he was a first hand participant in the formation and growth of globalized capital markets and complex derivative trading strategies. He has held senior executive positions at sell side firms (Citibank and RBS Greenwich Capital Markets) and buy side firms (Long-Term Capital Management and Caxton Associates) as well as technology firms (OptiMark and Omnis). Mr. Rickards has been a direct participant in many of the most significant financial events over the past 30 years including the release of US hostages in Iran (1981), the Stock Market crash of 1987, the collapse of Drexel (1990), the Salomon Bros. bond trading scandal (1991), the LTCM hedge fund collapse of 1998 (in which Mr. Rickards was the principal negotiator of the government-sponsored rescue) and other noteworthy events. He was involved in the formation and successful launch of several hedge funds and fund-of-funds. His advisory clients include private investment funds, investment banks, law firms and government directorates. Since 2001, Mr. Rickards has applied his financial expertise to a variety of tasks for the benefit of the US national security community and the Department of Defense.
Mr. Rickards is a frequent speaker at conferences sponsored by bar associations and industry groups in the fields of derivatives and hedge funds and is active in the International Bar Association. He has been the interviewed in The Wall Street Journal and on CNBC, Fox, CNN, NPR and C-SPAN and is an OpEd contributor to the Financial Times, New York Times and the Washington Post.
Mr. Rickards is a graduate school visiting lecturer in finance at Northwestern University and the School of Advanced International Studies. He has delivered papers on econophysics at the Applied Physics Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Mr. Rickards has written articles published in academic and professional journals in the fields of strategic studies, cognitive diversity, network science and risk management. He is a member of the Business Advisory Board of Shariah Capital, Inc., an advisory firm specializing in Islamic finance and is also a member of the International Business Practices Advisory Panel to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) Support Group of the Director of National Intelligence.
Mr. Rickards holds the following degrees: LL.M. (Taxation) from the New York University School of Law; J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School; M.A. in international economics from the School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC; and a B.A. degree with honors from the School of Arts & Sciences of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.