BUAD 492: Risk Management

Mr. Carl Tack ’78

Spring, 1 Credit

This course is designed to introduce students to risk management through two class sessions during the spring semester. Students spend the first session hearing a series of lectures from risk professionals in a range of industries. Each professional explains the risks they face in their business and the ways that they measure and mitigate these risks.

The following weekend, the students work in groups to model complex financial behavior with a Monte Carlo simulation. Students receive a pass/fail grade upon completion of the course.

About Mr. Tack

Carl Tack is Visiting Lecturer of Finance at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business and formerly Co-Director of the Boehly Center. He currently teaches an undergraduate course in financial institutions and graduate courses in corporate finance. Mr. Tack began his professional career as a corporate lawyer with Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, representing private equity and venture capital firms. He spent the next 25 years as an investment banker for several large firms in both Chicago and London. Mr. Tack retired from investment banking in 2009 and has since worked as a managing partner of a Dubai-based management consulting business, director of a Richmond based publicly traded manufacturing company, and lecturer in Finance. Prior to teaching at William & Mary, he lectured at the London Business School in London and Dubai, the London School of Economics and Imperial College London. Mr. Tack received his B.A. in Economics from William & Mary and his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He currently serves as an advisory board member at the Reves Center for International Studies at W&M.

Student Testimonials

“From Huntington Ingalls’ manufacturing, to TransRe’s reinsurance, to RiverFront’s investment management, to Professor Tack’s “Bailey Building & Loan,” each of the businesses presented to us in this year’s Risk Management course dealt with their own, unique risks and had distinct ways of evaluating and managing them. I am thankful for the engaging and knowledgeable professionals who were kind enough to share their time in explaining their business models and risk management systems to us. Additionally, I enjoyed Professor Guerrero’s instruction on conducting Monte Carlo and other simulations, exposing us to statistical concepts and methods which gain increasing importance as businesses continue to develop more sophisticated risk models for all aspects of their operations.”
Matt Buckley '18

“Taking this course has made me aware of how prevalent risk is in any type of business and how risk comes in many forms. Keeping the concepts I learned in mind, I feel better equipped to address risk in a formal business setting.”
Sabrina Elzbir '18