Blythe Masters

British economist (born 1969)

Blythe Masters
Masters speaking in 2015
Born	Blythe Sally Jess Levett (1969-03-22) 22 March 1969 (age 55) Oxford, United Kingdom
Education	The King's School, Canterbury
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)	Former CEO Digital Asset Holdings, LLC Former executive at J.P. Morgan
Known for	Entrepreneur in financial services
Relatives	Gordon Levett (father)

Blythe Masters (born 22 March 1969) is a British private equity executive and former financial services and fintech executive. She is a former executive at JPMorgan Chase,^[1] where she was widely credited for developing the credit default swap as a financial instrument.^[2] She is founding partner of FinTech private equity firm, Motive Partners,^[3] and an Advisory Board Member of the US Chamber of Digital Commerce,^[4] a Board Member of GCM Grosvenor,^[5] Forge Global,^[6] CAIS Group,^[7] and SymphonyAI.^[8] She is the former CEO of Motive Capital Corp,^[9] and a former board member of Credit Suisse Group.^[10]

Biography

Education

Born in Oxford, Masters was raised in the south-east of England. She attended The King's School in Canterbury.^[11] She graduated in 1991 from Trinity College, Cambridge with a B.A. in economics.^[12]

Professional career

JP Morgan Chase

Masters joined the bank JP Morgan Chase in 1991, after completing a number of internships there while still a student dating back to 1987. Responsible for credit derivative products at J.P. Morgan, Masters became a managing director at 28, the youngest woman to achieve that status in the firm's history.^[13] She is widely credited with creating the modern credit default swap, a derivative used to manage credit exposure to underlying reference entities.^[14] In 1994, J.P. Morgan had extended a $4.8 billion credit line to Exxon, which faced the threat of $5 billion in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A team of J.P. Morgan bankers led by Masters then purchased credit protection against the credit line to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to cut the capital which J.P. Morgan was required to hold against Exxon's default, thus reducing its own risk. J.P. Morgan later bundled together packages of such exposures and offered them to market as BISTRO, for Broad Index Secured Trust Offering,^[15] and these new financial instruments were quickly adopted by other banking institutions.^[14]

When derivatives played a role in the 2008 financial crisis, having been applied by other firms to sub-prime mortgages, Gillian Tett's book, Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dreams of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, documented how the original intent and features of credit derivatives had been distorted.^[16] Nonetheless, Masters was described by the UK newspaper The Guardian as "the woman who invented financial weapons of mass destruction". The paper later apologised for failing to give Masters an adequate opportunity to respond to their characterisation.^[11] She had told the newspaper: "I do believe CDS [credit default swaps] have been miscast, much as poor workmen tend to blame their tools." Masters explained to The Economist, "Tools that transfer risk can also increase systemic risk if major counterparties fail to manage their exposures properly."^[17] In April 2010 she told the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament that "there are definitely lessons that have to be learnt. I for one feel that I have learnt from that experience and there are things I may like to have seen done differently". She stated support for reforms which increase transparency and reduce the risk of contagion among financial firms.^[18]

From 2001 to 2004, Masters served as the bank's head of Global Credit Portfolio and Credit Policy and Strategy. From 2004 to 2007, she was Chief Financial Officer of J.P. Morgan's Investment Bank. In 2007, she was named head of Global Commodities.^[12] By 2014, J.P. Morgan had the largest revenues of any investment bank in commodities, according to United Kingdom analytics firm Coalition.^[19] That same year, J.P. Morgan announced the sale of its physical commodities business for $3.5bn in the face of increased regulatory scrutiny brought on by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigation into the bank’s alleged manipulation of energy markets in California and Michigan.^[20] J.P. Morgan paid $410 million to settle the investigation without admitting wrongdoing. J.P. Morgan defended Masters, stating that "We strongly dispute that Blythe Masters or any employee lied or acted inappropriately in this matter". Masters left J.P. Morgan once she had completed the sale for the bank.^[21]

Masters was the Chair of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association from 2008 to 2010 and also of the Global Financial Markets Association from 2012 to 2014, trade associations whose missions include promoting public trust and confidence in financial markets.^[12] She has frequently represented the industry in Washington, D.C., on matters including the design of carbon markets to contain global warming, curbs on large commodities trading positions and the financial regulatory overhaul.^[13]

2015–2023

Masters was named the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings in March 2015, a company that builds secure and distributed processing tools to speed up settlement, reduce costs and enhance security and transparency in regulated industries.^[22]^[23] The startup raised more than $100 million in multiple rounds of funding from fifteen technology and financial firms, such as Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Deutsche Boerse, DTCC, CME, IBM and Accenture. The company distributed ledger systems for the ASX, DTCC and others.^[24] In December 2017, ASX officially announced it would upgrade its post-trade settlement system to a blockchain platform designed by Digital Asset Holdings.^[25] In November 2022, ASX officially announced it would stop using the blockchain platform completely.^[26] In December 2018, Masters announced that she was stepping down as CEO, but would remain a board member, strategic advisor and a shareholder.^[27]

In December 2015, it was posited in the media that the new Barclays CEO Jes Staley had approached Masters about running the bank’s investment banking division, however Masters indicated she was fully committed to her current role at Digital Asset Holdings.^[28] From 2015 to 2016 she was the Chair of the Board of Santander Consumer Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SC), a full-service, technology-driven consumer finance company.

Masters was appointed to the Board of Directors of Phunware on December 30, 2019.^[29] On March 30, 2020 Masters was appointed Chair of the Board of Phunware.^[30] On March 24, 2021 Masters informed Phunware that she was resigning from the board of directors. ^[31]

In April 2021 Masters was elected to the Board of Directors of Credit Suiise Group AG.^[32]

In October of 2023, SymphonyAI appointed Blythe Masters as an independent member of the SymphonyAI board.^[33]

Private Equity

In late 2019 Masters joined Motive Capital Partners, a private equity firm.^[34] In September, 2021 Motive announced that she was leading Motive's acquisition of Forge Global, a pre-IPO stock marketplace, in a SPAC transaction valued at approximately $2 billion.^[35]

Personal life

Masters is Co-Chair of the Board of the Global Fund for Women, a board member of both The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and ID2020,^[36] and the former Chair of the Board of the Greater NY Affiliate of the breast cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure.^[12] She is an amateur equestrian.^[37]

References

^ "Blythe S. Masters". Businessweek.com. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012.
^ "Blythe Masters MoneyWeek profile". MoneyWeek.com.
^ "Motive Partners Team". Motive Partners.
^ "US Digital Chamber of Commerce Board or Advisors". digitalchamber.org.
^ "GCM Grosvenor Board". GCM Grosvenor.
^ "Forge Global Board". Forge Global.
^ "Alternative investment platform CAIS secures $225m capital boost". Private Banker International. 12 January 2022.
^ "SymphonyAI Appoints Financial Technology Visionary Blythe Masters to Its Board". SymphonyAI. 1 March 2024.
^ "Motive Capital Corp Team". Motive Capital Corp.
^ "Credit Suisse Board of Directors - Blythe Masters". credit-suisse.com.
^ ^a ^b David Teather (20 September 2008). "The woman who built financial 'weapon of mass destruction' | Business". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Blythe Masters". LinkedIn.
^ ^a ^b Dan Fitzpatrick (9 October 2010). "J.P. Morgan Commodities Chief Takes the Heat". The Wall Street Journal.
^ ^a ^b John Lanchester (1 June 2009). "Outsmarted: High finance vs. human nature". The New Yorker.
^ Alex Chambers (1 May 2006). "How the structured credit revolution started". Euromoney.
^ Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dreams of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, by Gillian Tett: ISBN 978-1-4165-9857-2, Spear's Book Awards Financial Book of the Year 2009.
^ "Credit derivatives: The great untangling". The Economist. 6 November 2008.
^ "Derivatives: To understand risks better, transparency should be increased". European Parliament. 28 April 2010.
^ David Sheppard (20 March 2014). "JPMorgan named top commodities bank, day after selling physical business". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2 October 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
^ Andy Hoffman and Hugh Son (19 March 2014). "JPMorgan Agrees to Sell Commodities Unit for $3.5 Billion". Bloomberg.
^ GillianTett (3 April 2014). "The female face of the crisis quits the spotlight". The Financial Times.
^ Matthew Leising and Edward Robinson (31 August 2015). "Blythe Masters tells banks the blockchain changes everything". Bloomberg.
^ Tom Braithwaite and Ben McLannahan (10 March 2015). "Masters joins cryptocurrency start-up". Financial Times.
^ Robert Hackett (18 February 2016). "Meet the ex-JPMorgan Blockchain Trail-Blazer Shaking Up Wall Street". Fortune.
^ "Australia's ASX delays blockchain transition by 6 months". Reuters. 4 September 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
^ Castillo, Michael del. "ASX Chairman Apologizes After Writing Off $165 Million Blockchain Project". Forbes. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
^ Rooney, Kate (19 December 2018). "Blythe Masters, Wall Street's best-known blockchain cheerleader, resigns from Digital Asset Holdings". CNBC. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
^ Michael Erman and Steve Slater (2 December 2015). "Exclusive: Barclays' boss wants Blythe Masters to run investment bank - source". Reuters. Archived from the original on 4 December 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
^ Press Release (30 December 2019). "Wall Street Veteran Blythe Masters Appointed to Phunware Board of Directors". phunware. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
^ "Phunware Announces the Appointment of Wall Street Veteran Blythe Masters as Board Chair". theglobeandmail. 30 March 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
^ Gandel, Stephen (1 April 2020). "Former JPMorgan executive quits board of company that collected data for Trump 2020 campaign". cbsnews. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
^ Form 6-K (30 April 2021). "REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE ISSUER PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15d-16 UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934". SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION. Retrieved 24 February 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ SymphonyAI via PRNewswire (10 October 2023). "SymphonyAI Appoints Financial Technology Visionary Blythe Masters to Its Board". prnewswire. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
^ Michael del Castillo (17 December 2019). "Blythe Masters Is Back...At A New $473 Million Private Equity Fund". Forbes.
^ Alexander Osipovich (13 September 2021). "Pre-IPO Marketplace Forge Global to Go Public in $2 Billion SPAC Deal". Wall Street Journal.
^ "Global Fund for Women - Blythe Masters". Global Fund for Women. 29 September 2015.
^ "Blythe Masters – 2004 40 Under 40 – Crain's New York Business Rising Stars". Crains New York. 28 July 2018.