Risk professional with extensive experience as chief risk officer, management consultant, and private and public board member. Enterprise risk management (ERM) expertise, including strategic, M&A, investment/market, liquidity, credit, IT/cyber security, and operational risks. Noted author and speaker on ERM and board risk oversight. Recognized in the 2017 NACD Directorship 100 as one of “the most influential people in the boardroom community.”
Current Public Board Experience
E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC), November 2012 to present
Independent Director, Chairman of the Risk Oversight Committee, Member of the Audit Committee. Worked with the board and management to enhance risk, compliance, and audit processes, including risk governance and policy, board reporting, and ERM effectiveness.
Prior Private Board Experience
Covarity, Inc. (Software), Independent Director, April 2009 to February 2012 ERisk, Inc., (Consulting/Software), Founder, Vice Chairman of the Board, September 2000 to July 2004
James is currently President of James Lam & Associates, a risk management consulting firm he founded in 2002. He works with corporate directors and executives across all industry sectors, including global banks, asset management firms, energy firms, multi-national corporations, regulatory agencies, and non-profits. In a Euromoney survey, James was nominated by clients and peers as one of the world’s leading risk consultants. He previously served as Founder and President of ERisk, a start-up that provided consulting and software solutions to banks, insurance companies, and energy firms. James also served as Partner of Oliver Wyman, where he founded and led the enterprise risk solutions practice.
Beyond consulting, James served in executive roles at global organizations. He was the first Chief Risk Officer of Fidelity Investments. He chaired the Global Risk Oversight Committee, which provided corporate oversight of Fidelity’s 40 institutional and retail businesses globally. Fidelity’s overall loss/revenue ratio declined 30% in three years, and its ERM program was featured as a best-practice case study in The Economist, Risk Magazine, and Price Waterhouse Review. He was Chief Risk Officer and Acting President of GE Capital Markets Services, where he managed all middle and back office functions, including business strategy, trading oversight, risk management, finance, IT, and operations.
James is the author of Enterprise Risk Management (Wiley, 2003; second edition, 2014), which has ranked #1 best-selling among 25,000 risk management titles on Amazon. The book has been translated into Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean. His latest book, Implementing Enterprise Risk Management, was published by Wiley in 2017. James served on the COSO ERM Advisory Board that was commissioned to update and improve the COSO ERM Framework. For three years (2005, 2006, and 2008), Treasury & Risk Management magazine named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance.” In 1997, James received the inaugural Risk Manager of the Year Award from the Global Association of Risk Professionals.
James graduated summa cum laude with a B.B.A. from Baruch College in 1983 and received an M.B.A. with honors from UCLA in 1989. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at Peking University and has taught MBA classes at Babson College and the Hult International Business School. He has guest lectured at Harvard Business School as the subject of a HBS case study. He has also completed executive management and corporate director programs at the Harvard and Stanford business schools. James is an NACD Board Leadership Fellow and is on the NACD faculty for their board training courses. He is also on the Carnegie Mellon University faculty for their CRO Executive Certification Program.
James lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts with his wife and they have three sons. He enjoys golf, tai chi, and poker. He can be reached at 617-320-2744 or james@jameslam.com.