James S. Henry

James S. Henry (Harvard B.A., M.S., J.D.) is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, economist, and investigative journalist with outstanding record of professional accomplishment. He has also been a resident and home-owner in the Town of Southampton, New York, since May 1987.

A newcomer to Hampton politics, Mr. Henry not a registered member of any political party. He prides himself on bringing a fresh, independent, "Bloomberg"-style problem-solving approach to Southampton Town.

In recognition of his experience and solid track record of civic and business leadership, Mr. Henry has been nominated to run for Town Supervisor by the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party for the upcoming November 2007 election.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Mr. Henry served as a lawyer, Shearman & Sterling (NY); Chief Economist, McKinsey & Company (NY); VP Strategy, IBM/Lotus Development; Manager - Business Development, on Jack Welch's staff at GE; and senior consultant at Monitor Co., Dr. Michael Porter's strategy consulting company.

In the early 1990s Mr. Henry also founded the Sag Harbor Group (www.sagharbor.com), a strategy consulting firm that is focused on developing competitive strategies and business alliances for technology-based businesses. SHG has led strategy studies for many prominent global enterprises, including AT&T, ABB, Allen & Co., Cordys, IBM/Lotus, Intel, Interwise, AT Kearney, Cemex, ChinaTrust, GM, Merrill Lynch, the Government of Spain, South Africa Telecom, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Swedish Power Board, TransAlta, UBS/Warburg, and Volvo.

As an entrepreneur, Mr. Henry has served as a founding partner of IVP, a Sao Paulo private equity firm that teamed with Warburg Pincus to create the first nationwide Brazilian wireless network. He has also been a founder and board member of Celtic Vision, a Boston-based cable TV network; Flooz.com, an e:payments company; Applied DNA, an identity security company.

Among non-profits, Mr. Henry is a board member of Peoplink.org, which develops and hosts web catalogues for artisans in developing countries. He has served as an advisor to Ashoka, a “reverse Peace Corps” that sponsors 1500 fellows in 30 countries; board member of Friends World/ Global College (LI University); Co-Chair, Tax Justice Network(US), an NGO focused on global tax policies; and a cooperating attorney and Suffolk County Board member, NY Civil Liberties Union, specializing in First Amendment and civil rights cases.

Mr. Henry is a fierce defender of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In 2006-7 Mr. Henry successfully sued the Village of Southampton, New York, in Federal Court, to guarantee that anti-war protesters would be allowed exercise their First Amendment rights in the Village's annual July 4th parades.

As an investigative writer, Mr. Henry has written extensively about economic issues, and pioneered investigations of economic mismanagement, "lousy lending," corruption, and money laundering in countries all over the globe.

Mr. Henry is the author of more than 50 articles that have appeared in such leading publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The New Republic, The Washington Post, US News, Manhattan Inc., Harpers, The Washington Monthly, Fortune, Business Week, Newsweek, Time, The Tax Lawyer, International Development Report, Jornal do Brasil, The Manila Chronicle, La Nacion, El Financiero, and Slate.

He has been a co-author or contributor to several published anthologies, including, with Paul Starr and Ray Bonner, Discarded Army – A Study of the Veterans Administration and Vietnam Veterans. (NY: Charterhouse, 1976); The Economics of Strategic Planning. (Lexington, Ma.: Lexington Books, 1986); Of Bonds and Bondage – A Reader on Philippine Debt, Emmanuel S. De Dios and Joel Rocamora (TNI, 1992); Transforming Retail Financial Services: The Impact of the Internet on Financial Services. (NY: AT Kearney/ SHG, 1999); and "The Mythology of Debt Relief," in Steve Hiatt and ed., A Game as Old as Empire (SF: Barrett Koehler, 2007).

Mr. Henry is the author of two seminal books on the history of Third World debt, capital flight, corruption, and private banking -- Banqueros y Lavadolares. (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores, 1996, 564 pp.); and Blood Bankers (forward by Senator Bill Bradley) (New York: Avalon/ Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003; 2005 ppb, 452 pp.). His latest book is Pirate Bankers (NY: forthcoming, 2008).

Henry has also served as an investigative producer on several documentaries, including (1)"Land Reform in Honduras" (1984); (2)"Noriega's Panama" (ABC News, 1991 - 1 hour); and "UnBoliviable!" (BuenaOndaFilms/ Donald Ranvaud, 2007.)

Henry’s investigations have taken him to more than 50 developing countries, including Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Malawi, Mexico, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, the Sudan, Taiwan, Tanzania, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and many "offshore" and "onshore" havens

The fruits of his investigations were instrumental in the 1992 trial and conviction of Panama's Manual Noriega and his partners in the drug trade; the location and recovery of offshore assets stolen by Paraguay's General Alfredo Stroessner; the identification of Philippines Central Bank's role in enriching Ferdinand Marcos; the disruption of a major US cocaine smuggling ring in Brazil (Brazil's Senate established a Parliamentary Commission (CPI) in 1992-93 as a result); the detection of the role played by US currency in facilitating illegal activity; and the identification of the role played by leading international banks in facilitating capital flight and tax evasion in developing countries.

Mr. Henry has testified several times before the US Senate, and is a frequent speaker at public forums on development, havens, money laundering, and tax evasion.

Mr. Henry has served as founder of SubmergingMarkets (www.submergingmarkets.com), an online investigative that specializes in investigative articles about political and economic development.

Mr. Henry is an honors graduate of Harvard College (BA, Social Studies; Detur Prize; Phi Beta Kappa, 1972), Harvard Law School (J.D., honors, 1976), Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (MS, Economics, 1978; a.b.d.), a National Merit Scholar, a Danforth Fellow, a former “Nader Raider,” and a member of the New York Bar since 1978. He is an "Adirondack 46R."

He is the proud father of two college-age children who live in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.