Derivatives Demystified - About the Author

John C. Braddock has over 35 years of experience in the financial services and energy industries. He is the founder and managing partner of Broad Oak Advisors, LLC and Broad Oak Management, LLC, which provides financial and investment banking services to entrepreneurs seeking access to the capital markets (2006-present). He is a co-founder and co-managing partner of Broad Oak Asia Pacific, LLC.

In the 1970's, Mr. Braddock financed his college education as a roughneck on oil and gas drilling rigs in the southern and southwestern U.S. After graduating from college, he became an oil and gas explorationist with Mobil Oil Corporation in New Orleans (1978-1982). He then moved to New York as the land manager for Buckeye Petroleum Corporation, a position that evolved into managing due diligence investment research for Tower Capital Corporation (1982-1988), an affiliated venture capital firm. Mr. Braddock has also held a number of financial positions on Wall Street, including with The Bank of New York (1987-1988), as a co-founder and director of the capital markets group for the American Stock Exchange (1988-1992), and as a first vice president for PaineWebber's structured products group (1992-1996). He was also the founding partner and managing director of the structured financial products group and later a director of investments for Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. (1996-2002) and a senior vice president with MFA, Inc., an investment management boutique in New York (2002-2006).

During the course of his career, Mr. Braddock has engaged in over $1.7 billion of public and private structured derivative transactions and start-up financings. He is the author of Derivatives Demystified: Using Structured Financial Products (Wiley, 1997) and a contributing author to The Handbook of Equity Derivatives (McGraw Hill, 2000). Mr. Braddock holds a Bachelor of Science degree in geology and finance from Louisiana State University (1978), an MBA degree from Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business in New York City (1987), and an honorable discharge from the U.S. Marine Corps (1975). He holds Series 7 (general), 22 (private placements), 63 (New York State), and 65 (registered investment advisor), and 79 (investment banking) Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) registrations. Mr. Braddock is a guest lecturer in finance, a mentor to graduate business students, and helps professional artists and musicians advance their careers.