Jérôme de Bontin

Partner at Capricorn Investment Group

Panellist

Jérôme de Bontin is a Partner with Capricorn Investment Group and a member of the Client Solutions Team. Prior to joining as Partner in 2020, he served as a strategic consultant to Capricorn as early as 2015.

The Capricorn Group initially managed the investment portfolio of Jeff Skoll and his organizations.

Jérôme de Bontin was Founder (1998), President and Chief Executive Officer of Mékar Financial Services and Sustainability Investments LLC, two Investment Advisory Firms specializing in Environmental Finance. As such, the firms promoted and sponsored Sustainability investment funds to Governments, Corporations, and Institutional Investors. Mr. de Bontin was registered with the US Security Exchange Commission as a General Securities and Financial Operations Principal. Jérôme de Bontin was also Founder and Co-President of Aegis Property Management, L.L.C a Real Estate Company focusing on the acquisition and development of properties in Taos County, New Mexico.

Before founding Mékar and its broker/dealer subsidiary “Sustainability Investments LLC” SILLC in January 1998, Mr. de Bontin was President and CEO of Crédit Agricole Futures, a French subsidiary of Credit Agricole Bank and a pioneer in Trading Advisors and Hedge Fund investments from 1994 to 1997. Prior to his work at Crédit Agricole Futures, Mr. de Bontin was Bank Director at CA Global Futures AG in Vienna, a joint venture between Austria's then largest bank Creditanstaldt Bankverein and the Chicago based brokerage firm of Rodman & Renshaw. Mr. de Bontin was instrumental in the development of Eastern European and Austrian derivative markets.

Prior to creating CA Global, Mr. de Bontin worked as Vice President in the Financial Futures Division of Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, opening its Paris office and working in both of its New York and Chicago offices before becoming Managing Director of the Financial Futures division in Chicago at Rodman & Renshaw. He was also co-author of “Les Marchés à Terme d'Instruments Financiers” (The Futures Market) in 1985 and collaborated on the publication of “Les Options de Change” in 1986 (translated into English as Currency Options in 1992 by the Dow-Jones Corporation).

A native of France, Mr. de Bontin is now also an American citizen residing with his wife in Chicago, Illinois. They have three children. Mr. de Bontin graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1981 with a degree in Economics. He has lectured on Financial Futures, Alternative Investments, Sustainability and Environmental Finance at several European Universities and such highly regarded institutions as the Banque de France, France's "Hautes Etudes Commerciales", the Swiss Futures Association and the Monaco Monetary Authorities.

Mr. de Bontin serves on the Board of the US Chapter of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and was a member of the National Advisory Board of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is also a Member of the Advisory Committee of the PA2F ReOcean Fund. He is a past member of the Young Presidents Organization.