Mark T. Williams

Mark T. Williams
Boston University School of Management
Born	(1963-08-19)August 19, 1963

Mark Thomas Williams (born August 19, 1963) is an academic, financial author, columnist and risk management expert. He is a faculty member in the Finance and Economics Department at Boston University where he teaches courses in banking, risk management and capital market activities.^[1]

Career

In 1985, he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware.^[2] He became a bank trust officer for Wilmington Trust Company and joined TD Banknorth in 1987. In 1993 he earned a Master of Business Administration from Boston University and joined the Federal Reserve Bank as an examiner in Boston and San Francisco. In 1997 he joined Citizens Power LLC, a Boston-based energy trading company and became a senior vice president, Head of Global Risk Management. Since 2002, he has been on the faculty of Boston University as Executive-in-Residence/Master Lecturer.^[3]

Williams is a member of the Standard & Poor’s Academic Council, a senior advisor at the Brattle Group and is on the board of Appleton Partners, a Boston-based private wealth management firm.

Williams is a frequent guest columnist and editorial contributor for the Financial Times,^[4][5][6] Reuters,^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]} Forbes.com,^[14][15] and Business Insider.^[16][17] He has also written articles for Fool.com,^[18] the Boston Globe,^[19] Foreign Policy magazine^[20] and Bloomberg.^[21]

In 2013 Williams predicted that Bitcoin would trade for less than 10 dollars by mid-2014,^[22] and provided testimony before the New York State Department of Financial Services hearing on virtual currencies. In fact, Bitcoin remained well above 200 dollars throughout 2014.^[23] He raised 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.^[24][25] On April 2, 2014, Williams provided congressional testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business discussing the 10 major risks associated with Bitcoin.^[26] The Bitcoin community remains critical of his concerns.^[27][28] Williams also continues to assert that the virtual currency is in a hyper bubble and will eventually suffer a price collapse.^[27]

Awards

• Beckwith Prize for Excellence in Teaching - Boston University, 2008.
• New England Book Show Best Reference Book of 2013 - New England Book Show, 2013.

Publications

• 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.

References