Mark T. Williams

put something here

Mark Thomas Williams (born August 19, 1963) is an educator, author and risk management analyst. He is a faculty member in the Finance and Economics Department at Boston University where he teaches classes in risk management and capital markets.

Career

Williams was born in Delaware. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware in 1985. He became a bank trust officer for Wilmington Trust Company (formerly Sussex Trust), joining TD Banknorth (1987) and attended the ABA National Graduate Trust School at Northwestern University (1988). In 1993 he earned a Masters of Business Administration from Boston University and joined the Federal Reserve Bank as an examiner in Boston and San Francisco.th In 1996 he became a senior risk analyst for Pacific Gas & Electric. One year later he joined Citizens Power LLC, a Boston based energy trading company, and became Senior Vice President, Head of Global Risk Management. Since 2002, he has been on the faculty of Boston University where he holds the academic rank of Executive-in-Residence/Master Lecturer. He is a senior advisor at the Brattle Group and is on the board of Appleton Partners, a Boston-based private wealth management firm. In 2008 he was awarded the Beckwith Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

Williams appears in national media and is a guest columnist for Financial Times, The New York Times, Reuters.com, Forbes.com, Boston Herald, Business Insider, and the Boston Globe. Williams’ book on the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers, Uncontrolled Risk, traces the root causes of the Great Crisis of 2008.

On December 5, 2013, Williams published an article warning that Bitcoin was a hyper asset bubble fueled by a get-rich-quick mindset. On January 29th, 2014, he provided oral and written testimony before the New York State Department of Financial Services hearing on virtual currencies. He raised several concerns about Bitcoin including it being a high-risk virtual commodity, having artificially inflated price, extreme hoarding, hyped demand, high potential for market manipulation, and need for strong regulation.

Testimony

Testimony of Mark T. Williams The New York State Department of Financial Services: Hearing on Virtual Currencies - January 29th, 2014.

Selected Works

Books

• Williams, Mark T. Uncontrolled risk: the lessons of Lehman Brothers and how systemic risk can still bring down the world financial system. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.
• Williams, Mark T. & Lawson, Alan. Longwood Covered Courts: And the Rise of American Tennis. Boston: 2013.

Recent Articles

• Bitcoin Could Involve Into An Existential Threat Worthy Of A Science Fiction Movie Business Insider - February 15, 2014
• Bitcoin is Not Yet Ready for the Real World New York Times - January 24, 2014
• FINANCE PROFESSOR: Bitcoin Will Crash To $10 By Mid-2014 Business Insider - December 17, 2013
• Beware of Bitcoin Cognoscenti - December 5, 2013
• The Cost of Doing Bad Business – Jamie Dimon Steps Down As Chairman Of JPMorgan Chase Banking Unit CommPRO.biz - October 4, 2013
• How to Prevent the Next Global Financial Crisis Cognoscenti- September 13, 2013
• The Price of Gold is Dropping Like a Brick Cognoscenti - August 6, 2013
• Reduce Taxpayer Risk: Roll Back FDIC Limits American Banker - February 1, 2013
• Corporate Crime Still Pays Boston Herald - December 2, 2011
• MF Global Gives Fed a Lesson in How to Pick its Friends The Financial Times - November 6, 2011

Recent Interviews

• This Finance Expert Thinks Bitcoin Will Fall 99 Percent by June Washington Post - December 10, 2013
• 5 Years Later, Could Lehman Happen Again? NECN - September 16, 2013
• Can Banks Cause Another Financial Crisis? Fox Business - September 16, 2013
• Does It Matter Who Leads the Fed? Yes and No Fox Business - August 28, 2013
• Mark Williams, A Former Federal Reserve Bank And Now Professor At Boston University, On Jamie Dimon Keeping Both Roles At JPMorgan WRKO Radio - May 22, 2013
• Transparency Is Albatross Around Fed Neck: Williams Bloomberg TV - April 2, 2013
• Bossing Around Jamie Dimon Fox Business - June 19, 2012
• Mark Williams Interview on Fed Transparency Bloomberg TV - April 1, 2011
• Canadian banks tops with U.S. professor The Globe and Mail - July 4, 2010
• Learning from Wall Street’s Failures The Boston Globe - June 27, 2010
• Learning from Lehman Brothers BU Today - June 17, 2010
• UD alum writes book on Lehman, financial crisis and important lessons learned, UDaily - June 10, 2010
• What Needs to Happen for Wall Street to Fix Compensation, The Wall Street Journal - June 9, 2010
• Williams Interview on Goldman Sachs Testimony Bloomberg TV - April 28, 2010
• Lehman’s Fuld Snubbed Risk Managers, Nerds Got Revenge: Books Bloomberg - April 21, 2010

Presentations

• Uncontrolled Risk: Lessons Learned from Lehman Brothers Fall August 31, 2009

External links

• Fool's Gold Foreign Policy - November 8, 2010
• Few Silver Linings When Gold Bubble Bursts The Financial Times - October 17, 2010
• Two Years After Lehman, Risk of Financial Collapse is Still High Reuters - September 15, 2010
• Ignore the hyperbole: America is not bust The Financial Times - September 8, 2010
• The weak link in bank reform The Boston Globe - July 8, 2010
• The G-20 Superpowers Should Learn From Canada The Motley Fool - June 28, 2010
• Derivatives Trading Comes Clean in the Open: Mark T. Williams Bloomberg - April 16, 2010
• Big banks aren’t bad banks Reuters - February 2, 2010
• Don’t give the Fed a new job Reuters - July 16, 2009
• Don’t throw the keys to the Fed The Boston Globe - July 2, 2009
• Stress tests: The results are in, now what? Reuters - May 8, 2009
• A Breach Of Fiduciary Duty At Bank Of America? Forbes - February 26, 2009
• Is the Fed up to examining your trillion dollar bet? Reuters - January 30, 2009
• Why did the SEC fail to spot the Madoff case? Reuters - January 6, 2009
• Minimizing exposure to investment management fraud Reuters - December 15, 2008
• Subprime Market Debacle Forbes - February 26, 2008