Bruce M. Usher

Co-Director

Social Enterprise Program

Executive-in-Residence

Executives in Residence Program

Adjunct

Management

BComm, Queens University, 1986; MBA, Harvard, 1992

Bruce Usher

Office
210 Uris

Phone
212-854-7903

E-mail
bmu2001@columbia.edu

Fax
212-854-7900

Teaching and research interest

Bruce Usher is co-director of the Social Enterprise Program and an executive-in-residence at Columbia Business School, where he has been an adjunct professor in finance since 2002, teaching the Carbon Finance and the Finance & Sustainability courses. The objective of both courses is to utilize financial tools to create sustainable value for society. From 2002 to 2009, Professor Usher was CEO of EcoSecurities Group plc, during which time he built it into the world's largest public carbon credit company. EcoSecurities structures and guides greenhouse gas emission reduction projects through the Kyoto Protocol, acting as principal intermediary between the projects and the buyers of carbon credits. Professor Usher led EcoSecurities through an IPO, a secondary public placement and strategic investment, and the sale of the entire company to JP Morgan in December 2009. EcoSecurities developed more than 400 projects in 36 countries, representing approximately 10 percent of all projects approved by the United Nations under the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to EcoSecurities, Usher was co-founder and CEO of TreasuryConnect LLC, which provided electronic trading solutions to banks and was sold to eSpeed Inc in 2001. For the previous six years, he was COO of The Williams Capital Group, a boutique institutional investment bank. Prior to that, he worked in financial services in New York and Tokyo. He is on the boards of E+Co, a nonprofit that finances clean energy entrepreneurs in developing countries, and Community Energy Inc., a renewable energy project development company. He earned an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.

Courses taught

Areas of Expertise

  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Environment
  • Environment Decision Making / Policy
  • Social Entrepreneurship