Professor Usher is CEO of EcoSecurities Group Limited, the world's leading climate change advisory firm. EcoSecurities advises renewable energy project developers on financing their projects through emissions reductions credits. EcoSecurities has worked on over 60 projects in more than 25 countries, in addition to providing services to many of the world's leading governments, multilateral organizations, NGOs and corporations in the climate change field.
Prior to EcoSecurities, Usher was co-founder and CEO of TreasuryConnect LLC, which provided electronic trading solutions to banks, investment banks and Global 1000 corporations. TreasuryConnect was financed by investment subsidiaries of AIG Financial Products Corporation and Enron Corporation. TreasuryConnect was sold to eSpeed Inc, developer of the world's largest electronic financial marketplace, in 2001. For the previous six years, Usher was responsible for managing sales, trading and administration as COO of The Williams Capital Group, a boutique institutional investment bank specializing in capital markets activities for major corporations and institutional investors. During that time Williams Capital grew from a start-up to 55 professional employees with offices in New York and London. Prior to that he spent four years as a Vice President and trader of structured derivative securities at Lehman Brothers in both New York and Tokyo. Before joining Lehman, Usher worked for several years trading derivatives at the Chuo Trust & Banking Company in Tokyo.
Usher is Columbia University's representative to the United Nations' Global Compact initiative on integrating sustainability in equity research. The result of this initiative is a report titled "Who Cares Wins: Connecting Financial Markets to a Changing World", which was endorsed by 20 leading financial firms and published by the UN Global Compact in June 2004.