Janet Tavakoli

Janet Tavakoli is an American author and derivatives and securities expert based in Chicago. She has had three books published on credit derivatives, structured finance, and the 2008 global financial crisis.

Education and Background

Ms. Tavakoli grew up in the south side of Chicago, received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1975, and an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1981.

After marrying an Iranian Phd student at college, Tavakoli lived in Iran for over a year at the time that the Shah was overthrown, leaving in 1979, three months after Khomeini returned.

Career

Since completing her M.B.A. in 1981 Ms. Tavakoli has worked in finance. Tavakoli has traded, structured and sold derivatives and structured products in both New York and London. She has held senior positions in the global financial markets division at Westdeutsche Landesbank in London, the capital markets group for Bank One in Chicago, the asset swap trading desk at Merrill Lynch in New York, mortgage backed securities marketing for Merrill Lynch in New York, and mortgage backed securities marketing to Japanese clients for PaineWebber in New York. She has also worked for Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs.

Tavakoli taught "Derivatives: Futures, Forwards, Options and Swaps" at Chicago Booth (the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business) as adjunct associate professor of finance.

Writing

Ms. Tavakoli's book "Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (2009)" uses her discussions with Warren Buffett on credit derivatives and structured finanace as context for analyzing the global financial meltdown of 2008. The discussions began after Buffett invited her to lunch after receiving a copy of her book "Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Structures (1998, 2001)". This book, along with her "Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization" (2003, 2008) outline flaws in the methodology for rating structured financial products.

She has also written articles for The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Business Week, Fortune, Global Risk Review, RISK, IDD, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, LIPPER HedgeWorld, Asset Securitization Report, Journal of Structured Finance, Investor Dealers' Digest, International Securitization Report, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Magazine, Credit, Derivatives Week, TheStreet.com, Finance World, and others.

Criticism of Bailout

Tavakoli is an outspoken critic of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bailout of troubled financial institutions. She points out that many decisions made appear to favour companies with connections to government officals making the decisions. In particular, she notes that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, headed by Timothy Geithner at the time, heavily influenced by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, decided to pay Goldman Sachs 100 cents on the dollar for billions of dollars of troubled AIG Credit Default Swaps while precedents indicated a discount to 40 cents on the dollar or more. Paulson, the prime architect of the bailout was CEO of Goldman Sachs at the time those CDS agreements were entered into. Geithner subsequently was appointed Treasury Secretary by the Obama administration.

External links

• BusinessWeek Article
• University of Chicago Magazine Article
• Interview on C-Span | Transcript
• Janet Tavakoli website