Faculty Biographies

Michael K. Ong

Professor and Director, Finance Program

Office: DTC 412
E-Mail: ong@stuart.iit.edu
Phone: 312.906.6568
Fax: 312.906.6549

Education

• B.S. Physics, University of the Philippines
• M.A. Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• M.S. Applied Mathematics, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Ph.D. Applied Mathematics, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Affiliated Programs
M.S. Finance
M.S. Financial Markets

Research Interests

• Risk management – market risk, credit risk, operational risk and regulatory issues
• International finance and capital markets
• Financial risk modeling

Biography
Until recently, Professor Ong was Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer for Credit Agricole Indosuez in New York, where he held enterprise-wide responsibility for all risk management functions for corporate banking, merchant banking, asset management, capital markets activities, and the Carr Futures Group. He was a member of the Executive Committee and chaired the Risk Management Committee, Credit Committee, Market Risk Committee, Equity Investment Committee, and the Operational Risk Committee.

Dr. Ong was also Head of Enterprise Risk Management for ABN-AMRO Bank. He was responsible for management information and decision support function for the Executive Committee regarding enterprise-wide market, credit, operational, and liquidity risk, as well as RAROC, ROE, and related optimization models.

Previously, Dr. Ong was Head of Corporate Research Unit for First Chicago NBD Corporation (now Bank One). The unit supports the Bank in its global enterprise-wide risk management function market and credit risk analyses and the allocation of economic capital and oversees the quantitative research units of the trading areas. He also chaired the Global Risk Management Research Council which was established in recognition of the Bank's commitment for overall control and coordination of the quantitative research efforts and systems development across all trading units. Prior to that, he was in charge of First Chicago NBD's Market Risk Analysis Unit and was responsible for quantitative research in the First Chicago Capital Markets Group. Before joining First Chicago NBD, he was responsible for quantitative research at Chicago Research and Trading Group (now NationsBanc-CRT). Before leaving academia for the financial industry, he served as an assistant professor of mathematics at Bowdoin College for seven years with his research specialty in mathematical physics.

In 1992, he was also an adjunct professor at the Stuart School of Business of the Illinois Institute of Technology where he designed the quantitative portion of the Financial Markets and Trading Program, which RISK acknowledged as the first of its kind. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, the Journal of RISK, and a referee for trade and academic journals. He has written numerous articles and contributed book chapters to industry publications.

He is author of the critically acclaimed book, Internal Credit Risk Models - Capital Allocation and Performance Measurement, published by RISK Books in April 1999. His most recent book, Credit Ratings - Methodologies, Rationale and Default Risk, was recently published by RISK Books in November 2002.

Dr. Ong is widely recognized in the financial industry for his work on portfolio credit risk modelling, RAROC, economic capital allocation, operational risk, enterprise risk management, his very active involvement in regulatory issues, and his thoughtful candor on issues affecting the industry in general. He is widely quoted in the industry press. Among his earlier accomplishments in the industry are his contributions to value-at-risk (VaR), counter-party credit risk, market risk capital adequacy requirement, ALM methodology, exotic options, and interest rate term structure models for derivatives.