MSRA Spotlight on James Green

By Corey Modeste

Midway through our conversation, and without any hint of hyperbole, James Green said, “In 2000 I earned and lost $12 million dollars.”

Prior to talking to him I anticipated learning about how he got into squash, and what he did for a living.  But, I thought, I’d much prefer to hear about a Phil Michelson-esque gambling problem, or a multi-year binge of expensive cars, hardcore drugs, and fast women. Or even a story about how a sudden gust of wind blew a winning lottery ticket out of his hands and into the East River.  I was already mentally drafting how I would write of him celebrating his lottery winnings on an impromptu sailing trip when the ticket slips out of his hands, him running the length of the boat in slow motion and then leaping in vain into the water, just as the ticket get shredded in the propeller.  Whatever, just as long as he doesn’t do that jerk thing where he puts out a teaser and then says, “Well, you know, I really can’t talk about it.”

“No”, he said, “I don’t care if anyone knows.”

I first met James a couple of years ago when we were both either playing at the New York Health and Racquet Club on Wall Street, or had mutual friends who played there. We didn’t know each other very well, but whenever I saw him, I always thought that he seemed to have a good life.  Lots of friends, very fit and active and generally always in a good mood.  He also always seemed to have free time to enjoy leisure pursuits, especially squash. And while I didn’t know any details, there were hints of a life well travelled.  Not the “I’ll name drop everywhere I’ve been in 30 seconds” kind of well travelled, but the kind of person that could have fit in just as well in any one of many places around the world.

Among other places, James grew up in the UK but found his way to Canada to attend university at McGill. Music was his passion and he not only majored in music theory and played cello with the Montreal Symphony, but also played bass with a Montreal-based rock band.  His analytic side guided him to a concentration in computer science, and his general passion for learning meant that he also took whatever class and field of study he could find. The net effect of this varied life was two things. First, it DID take him seven years to graduate, and second, it gave him as great of background for applying to business school as one could have. I think the admissions team at his first choice UCLA (he needed to get away from cold Montreal) would have had a very hard time turning down the application from the British punk rocker/symphonic cellist, who runs a 2:39 marathon and (just for good measure) scored in the top ½ percentile on the GMAT’s.

Places where James has lived (not just visited, but lived).

  

After finishing business school in 1889, and after a short stint in a smaller firm, he joined The Walt Disney company where he helped set up their film distribution business.  It was a job that took him to live in (not just visit!) Paris, Munich, Hong Kong and Tokyo. In 1997 while living in Japan he met a cool Aussie film director, fell in love, got married and moved to the US and began working at Pixar Animation Studios directly for Steve Jobs. 

While Disney and Pixar are great names to work for, as best as I could tell, they were but some of the professional projects with which he was involved. There were also references to past deals, ventures launched and companies sold, and I started to wonder if James had done some monster spinoff at the tail end of the dot.com boom that allowed him to pursue a life of squash leisure. While I couldn’t (and didn’t want to) ask him if he had sold one of his companies for a large sum, I wanted to know more.

So, in my most diplomatic and deferential voice, I started telling James of an ex squash league team teammate who, while in college at MIT, had sold a company to Microsoft.  My teammate told me that, “while he was not able to disclose the terms of the transaction, he was allowed to say that...”  It was then that James cut me off and in doing so demonstrated another quality that makes him a great guy - the ability to get to the heart of an issue in a way that’s direct and informative, while remaining polite and humble.  Otherwise put, “Corey, I see where you’re going with this, and since I have no trouble disclosing this, I’ll tell you what happened.”

As it turns out, no gambling or coke addiction, just a stock deal gone bad. In 2000, 24/7 Media acquired James’ company and he was compensated with $12 million 24/7 Media restricted stock.  His investment portfolio was rich, but his bank account remained unchanged. Restricted stock deals are common, and as long as 24/7 Media’s stock held up, he would be able to sell the stock in 12 months and celebrate…but this story didn’t begin with how James earned (and retained) $12 million in 2009.  At the time of sale, the stock was at $49 but a year later was at $0.25 cents. 

However, while the big score may not have come through (yet!), there were a number of much smaller but more successful transactions. And he continues to work in a field that gives him the chance to continue to combine his analytic side with creative media.  He is currently he is a partner of Giant Realm, a media technology company which sells ads for video game and entertainment websites.  Giant Realm represents video game sites like Filefront and CheatCodes and through aggregating ad space across these sites, is able to command better advertising fees from advertisers as diverse as Gillette, Electronic Arts and The Army.

And his busy schedule has plenty of time carved out for squash.  He loves the MSRA leagues (demonstrated by the fact that he captains three Printing House teams) and plays most of the MSRA tournaments.  In fact, I’m 100% sure that he always has a bag packed and ready at home and at work to play squash whenever and wherever the occasion arises.  

James and his wife live in the West Village with their 9-year old daughter and 6-year old son.

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