Robert E. Brooks, PhD, CFA

President, Financial Risk Management, LLC

Selected current interest include:

Addressing foundational beliefs within financial practice from personal finance to quantitative analysis
Effective financial derivatives and financial risk management training
Undergraduate, Masters, Ph.D., Executive MBA, On-Site, and On-Line
Unique independent approach to quantitative finance challenges, including litigation support
Over 35 years of both academic and industry experience
Wide array of academic and consulting offered through Financial Risk Management, LLC

Brooks seeks to make financial theory work in practice. Typically, the main things are the plain things. An independent perspective providing unique insights for a wide variety of audiences.

Robert E. Brooks

President

Financial Risk Management, LLC

Biography

Robert E. Brooks, PhD, CFA, is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the University of Alabama and the President of Financial Risk Management, LLC, a financial risk management consulting firm focused on market risks. Brooks has retired from a 37-year career as a finance professor focused on investments, primarily issues related to financial risk management.

Brooks is the author of over 85 articles appearing in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Derivatives, Journal of Banking and Finance, Financial Management, and others. Further, he is the co-author of Foundations of the Pricing of Financial Derivatives: Theory and Analysis (PhD level) and An Introduction to Derivatives and Risk Management (Undergraduate level, Seventh through Tenth Editions) with Don Chance and has authored several books including Building Financial Risk Management Applications with C++ (Masters level). Further, he maintains https://www.youtube.com/@FRMHelpForYou, a YouTube channel covering free online materials, Building Quantitative Finance Applications with R (Masters level).

Brooks is an award-winning instructor at both the collegiate level as well as the executive level. His teaching awards include: Algernon Sidney Sullivan Award, nationally recognized and a University of Alabama Premier Award, 2023; Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award, National Alumni Association, University of Alabama, 2014; Thomas D. Moore Endowed Teaching Award, Culverhouse College of Commerce, 2018; and Jim Nabors Teaching Excellence Award, Culverhouse College of Commerce, 2015. Finally, Brooks received numerous department-level teaching awards. Brooks has been retained as an executive training facilitator for several major companies.

Brooks has been quoted in several print media, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, New York Times, and The Bond Buyer. Brooks has also testified in a subcommittee hearing of the U. S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. as well as in a field hearing of the SEC in Birmingham, Alabama. Brooks has consulted with major public utilities, energy companies, auditing firms, corporations, investment bankers, elected municipal officials, and commercial bankers regarding managing financial risks, derivatives valuation and software development.

Brooks has served as both consulting and testifying expert witness in several court cases and conducts custom-designed financial seminars on various aspects of finance.

Interests

Investments
Financial Risk Management
Applied Philosophy (to finance)

Education

PhD in Finance, 1986

University of Florida
BSc in Finance, 1981

Florida State University

Selected Experiences

Board Member and a Founding Partner

Keel Point, LLC

Jun 2003 – Jan 2015 Huntsville, Alabama

Founded as Blue Creek Investment Partners, LLC and merged with Keel Point, LLC in 2015.

Various Professor of Finance Positions

The University of Alabama

Jun 1989 – May 2023 Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Responsibilities include:

Academic financial research
Teaching quantitative finance (including R programming language)
Coordinating the Master of Science in Finance program

President

Financial Risk Management, LLC

Jan 1989 – Present Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Making Theory Work in Practice.

Skills

R, C++

30+ years

Financial Publications

See Vita (CV tab above)

Training

Clear, Engaging, and Customizable

Publications

Selected publications with associated links below. See CV for complete publication listing. For working papers, please reference my Social Sciences Research Network page: Robert Brooks SSRN Working Papers

Foundations of the Pricing of Financial Derivatives Theory and Analysis

In Foundations of the Pricing of Financial Derivatives Theory and Analysis two expert finance academics with professional experience deliver a practical new text for doctoral and masters’ students and also new practitioners. Available in January 2024.

Robert E. Brooks, Don M. Chance

Wiley Link

Introduction to Derivatives and Risk Management

This book is written for college undergraduate students and entry-level financial analysts seeking to improve their understanding of financial derivatives and risk management.

Robert E. Brooks, Don M. Chance

Cengage Link

Building Financial Risk Management Applications with C++

This book is written for college graduate students and entry-level financial analysts. No prior knowledge of C++ programming is assumed.

Robert E. Brooks

Amazon Link

See all publications

Education Projects

Various Stages of Development

The goal is to eventually sychronize this material and provide a template for learning different topics across academic levels or simply learning the fields of financial derivatives and financial risk management at a specified level.