THE MAN BEHIND COWBOY ETHICS
Jim Owen is Founder and CIO* of the Center
for
Cowboy Ethics and Leadership and author
of the
books Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street
Can Learn from the Code of the West and
Cowboy Values: Recapturing
What America
Once Stood For
Jim’s Wall Street career spanned 40 years,
including 15 years as a partner with NWQ
Investment Management Company in Los Angeles. He is co-founder and Chairman Emeritus
of the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA). Profiled in the Wall Street Journal
as a leading Wall Street “rainmaker,” Jim has also been a prolific speaker and author on investment
topics. His book credits include The Prudent Investor (McGraw-Hill, 1990) and The Prudent Investor’s
Guide to Hedge Funds (John Wiley & Sons, 2000).
In 2004, dismayed by the rash of corporate scandals and growing societal discord, Jim launched a
second career as a social entrepreneur focused on ways to strengthen the foundation of shared values
in American society. Inspired by his lifelong interest in Western history and lore, Jim coined the
phrase “cowboy ethics” and wrote his book distilling the Code of the West into “Ten Principles to Live
By.” To date nearly 100,000 copies of the book have been sold.
A summa cum laude graduate of Regis University, Jim is also a past President of the Board of
Trustees of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
* Chief Inspiration Officer
