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Tom James (professor)

British professor and author

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ108293335 ↗
Source-derived summary

Tom James (born December 15, 1971) is a British professor and author who predominantly writes about commodities. He has published seventeen works in four languages. James has served as Chair Professor at universities in the UK, Korea, India and Singapore. He is a former senior Energy Advisor to the United States Department of Defense and a former member of the United Nations FAO Commodity Risk Management Advisory Group.

James held a chair professorship at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in India.

Early life

James began his career in the energy trading department of Mocatta Commercial in the early nineties. Following the first Gulf War, James began mentoring Asian clients in hedging refinery and crude oil margins for petroleum-based products. James moved to Singapore in 1996 and set up a derivatives trading operation for the now-defunct Credit Lyonnais.

Career

In 1999, James set up an online platform for over the counter (OTC) commodities swaps with ICAP. The platform used straight-through data processing, automated risk management, and a mechanism for providing de facto credit clearing controls.

James took a role with Crédit Agricole to create a clearing platform for futures, OTC swaps and physical commodities.

Editorial summary

“Tom James (professor)” enters the record as british professor and author. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, professor and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1971, 1996, 1999—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1971. Its strongest next move is a source search built around James, professor and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Tom James (professor)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, James, professor and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q108293335. VIAF identifies the subject as 33057184. The Library of Congress control number is nb2003011724. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1996 and 1999.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Tom James (professor)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tom James (professor) primary sources, Tom James (professor) archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tom James (professor)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tom James (professor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.