James Harmon

James A. Harmon (born October 12, 1935) is an American fund manager who is the chairman of the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund and former chief investment officer of Caravel Management LLC; longtime investment banker; and former chairman of the World Resources Institute. He was the 18th chairman and president of the Export–Import Bank of the United States and has served on numerous public and private boards of directors. He is also the author of A Daring Enterprise and Up and Doing.

Early life and education Harmon was born in New York City and raised in Mamaroneck, New York, son of Belle Harmon (née Kirschner), a local dress shop owner and Bert Harmon, a New York real estate attorney. Among his grandparents was Bessie Hamburger, one of the first female Assistant District Attorneys in New York and a pioneer among women lawyers is domestic relations law, specifically marital relations.

After graduating from the Berkshire School, Harmon earned a BA in English Literature from Brown University in 1957, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1959. He and his wife, Jane Harmon (née Theaman), were married in 1957 in Scarsdale, New York. His wife is a theatrical producer who has produced Broadway plays, including Driving Miss Daisy and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Harmon and his wife reside in Weston, Connecticut. They have three children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Career Wall Street years Harmon worked on Wall Street for 38 years. He spent 15 years at broker-dealer New York Hanseatic Corp, and in 1974 he joined investment banking firm Wertheim & Co. as chairman of the investment banking committee. He was vice chairman at Wertheim when he had a chance meeting with old friend and Schroder's director Alva Way on a flight from London to New York; the ensuing conversation led to Schroder's acquisition of a half interest of the firm in 1986. The firm was renamed Wertheim Schroder & Co. The transaction allowed Wertheim to stabilize its capital base and gave the firm access to Schroder's client base in Europe and Asia. He served on the board of a number of U.S. and U.K. public companies.

Export-Import Bank of the United States On May 6, 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated Harmon for president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which makes billions in loan guarantees to developing nations to purchase goods and services from the US. The US Senate confirmed the nomination on June 12, 1997.

Caravel Management LLC His stint as head of the Ex-Im Bank was Harmon’s introduction to frontier markets. WRI has over 1400 employees, and in addition to its main office in Washington, DC, WRI maintains offices in China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Ethiopia, Brazil and a European headquarters in The Hague.

Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, President Barack Obama pledged $1 billion in economic aid to Egypt. In July 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Egypt to meet newly elected President Mohamed Morsi. During this visit, Clinton announced that Harmon would head the new Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund ("EAEF"). Secretary of State John Kerry announced in March 2013 that the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund would be launched by the US. In an effort to boost Egypt's ailing economy, the fund was to invest in small- and medium-sized Egyptian businesses. The fund was officially launched on April 24, 2013. which highlighted the success of the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund and advocated for a new set of enterprise funds to be created in Central America, southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

In April 2019, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, published an opinion piece on the EAEF, "The story of a private-equity fund shows how a U.S.-Egypt reset could begin."

Politics Harmon served as finance chairman for incumbent New York Mayor David Dinkins’ unsuccessful 1993 campaign for reelection. Harmon was Dinkins’ second-highest fundraiser, raising $155,300 for the mayor's campaign. Harmon helped raise over $100,000 for President Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 campaign for reelection. In 2010, Questar spun off exploration and production businesses, Questar Market Resources, to QEP Resources. Harmon served on the board of QEP until May 2011 when he stepped down.

In the 1980s, he served on the board of film production company Orion Pictures,

In 1995, he became chairman of a newly formed company, Latin Communications Group Inc., which invested in the Spanish language daily El Diario, with an aim at purchasing additional Spanish-language media outlets. Latin Communications Group was purchased by Entravision Communications in 1999.

In 2001, he founded Harmon & Co., a financial advisory firm providing services globally to private and public institutions. He serves as the company's chairman. While he was chairman the CCA partnered with the Council on Foreign Relations (of which he is a member), the Institute for International Economics and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, to launch the Commission on Capital Flows to Africa. He chaired the commission that presented its final report to the US government in June 2003.

He was a member of the World Panel on Financing Water Infrastructure, formed by the Global Water Partnership, the Read the user guideWorld Water Council and the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan, to consider solutions to global water needs. He was also a member of the Advisory Committee on International Capital Markets; the nominating committee of the Board of the New York Stock Exchange; and the board of directors of the Securities Industry Association.

In 2009, he established the Harmon Family Professorship of Africana Studies at Brown University, his alma mater. Harmon is a trustee emeritus of Brown University and Barnard College.

He was the U.S. representative on the 2011 High Level Panel for Infrastructure Investment, a panel appointed by the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G20 summit in France. The purpose of the panel was to make recommendations for the summit regarding worldwide financing and infrastructure needs.

Publications In 2021, Harmon published a memoir, Up and Doing: Two Presidents, Three Mistakes, and One Great Weekend--Touchpoints to a Better World. In 2026, he coauthored another book, A Daring Enterprise: A US-Egyptian Partnership and the Case for Soft Power that was published by the American University in Cairo Press.