About

About Me

Early days

Ramon de Oliveira was born in Argentina in 1954. His mother is French and his father Argentinian. They met in Paris during WW II. Ramon’s mother was a volunteer ambulance driver in Paris. She distinguished herself during the German bombardments and the arrival of the Allied forces. She was decorated of the War Cross in 1944, married a year later, and moved to Argentina with de Oliveira’s father.

The family returned to France in the late 50’s. De Oliveira studies at the Lycee Louis-le- Grand and later graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in Law, Economics, and Political Sciences. In 1977, he joined the Paris Office of JP Morgan & Co, a firm where he spent the next 25 years of his life- first in London during the booming years of the Eurodollar market and then in New York where he resides today.

Life at JP Morgan

Until the late 80’s, the US banking system was operating under the Glass-Steagall Act which prevented commercial banks (like JP Morgan) to underwrite corporate securities in the US. De Oliveira oversaw such activities in London when, in 1989, cracks began to appear in the Act. In a matter of days, he was asked to move to New York to start a global equities business. De Oliveira led the development of global equities over the next 8 years making it one of the main contributors to the earnings of Morgan. In 1995, as a result of this performance, he joined the firm executive committee. In 1996, he was appointed CEO of the firm’s investment management and private banking operations, among the most prestigious in the world of finance.

Mergers and acquisitions were raging at that time in the US. Given his seniority in the firm, de Oliveira lead two transforming transactions. The first, was the acquisition of 45% of mutual fund American Century which marked an historical entry for Morgan into the retail market, a decision recommended by de Oliveira to his board of directors. The second transaction was the 2001 merger of JP Morgan with Chase Manhattan in which de Oliveira participated as part of the Morgan team. This merger created the premier bank in the world, a status still enjoyed today. De Oliveira became head of investment and private banking for the combined entity, the only executive from former JP Morgan to receive operating responsibilities at the executive committee level.

Life after JP Morgan

In 2002, operating on the belief that a life is constructed from engaging in a variety of different experiences, de Oliveira left JP Morgan. He pursued three different tracks:

- Academic: de Oliveira and one of his former JP Morgan partners became adjunct professors at both Columbia and NYU business schools.

- De Oliveira joined several corporate boards as a director: SunGard data Systems, American Century, The Hartford, the Kauffman Foundation, Quilvest, Jaccar, and the American Red Cross (investment committee). In 2021 he retired from the chairmanship of Equitable and Alliance Bernstein.

- De Oliveira started a consulting firm named Logan Pass Partners, the predecessor to today’s RdeO Consulting These three tracks created a wealth of experience and contacts that de Oliveira applied to two major non-for-profit projects. First, in 2009, he co-founded the Foundation of the Louvre Museum and chaired his investment committee for 10 years. For this work, de Oliveira was knighted Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 2021. Second, he participated in the creation of Friends of Notre Dame to raise funds, first to repair the cathedral, and later to begin the remedial work required following the terrible fire that almost destroyed Notre Dame in 2018.

Today

De Oliveira runs today the strategic consulting practice he founded, RdeO Consulting. The principles followed by the firm are set out in the next tab. His clients include a number of senior executives from the profit and non-for-profit sectors. He remains a corporate director with AXA, Antin Infrastructure, and the Polish American

Freedom Fund (investment committee). As an Argentinian (and French) citizen, de Oliveira main hobby is the practice of tango! In 2010, he co-produced with professional dancer and choreographer Agustina Videla, and the city of Buenos Aires the “Social Tango Project” which brings all the facets of this art onto the stage. The show will tour North America in 2023.