James M. Stone

Chairman, Plymouth Rock Company

Jim Stone is the founder and CEO of the Plymouth Rock Assurance Group of Insurance Companies.  Educated first in the public schools of Pelham, New York, Jim received his bachelor’s degree, with Highest Honors in Economics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard.  His academic work was recognized by prizes for the best undergraduate economics thesis and the best economics paper presented to the Graduate School. He was a lecturer in economics at Harvard University in the early 1970s. In 1975, Tim was appointed Insurance Commissioner of Massachusetts by Governor Michael S Dukakis. In 1979 he was appointed chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) by President Jimmy Carter. 

Following his government service, Jim founded Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation, which writes automobile and homeowners coverage in the Northeast United States with approximately $1.8 billion in annual premiums. He served on the Board of Directors of the Boston Globe from 1998 to 2006, and for five years as vice chairman of Global Post, a web-based international news service. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a genetics and cancer research institute. He served for ten years on the Board of Management Sciences for Health, a global public health nonprofit. He is the chairman of the School of the Move prize panel, which grants an annual award to the most improved Boston public school. He is a fellow and a member of the Trust of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization. He is the author of “One way for Wall Street,” and “Five Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America's Greatest Economic Challenges,” a Bloomberg Best Books of 2016 selection. He has authored numerous articles on insurance, finance and economics. 

Jim is the principal donor to seven academic centers or programs for the study of wealth inequality. These are located at Harvard University, the City University of New York Graduate Center, Brown University, University College London, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Berkeley, and INSEAD. He is married to Kathleen Douglas Stone, a lawyer and environmentalist. They live in Boston and have twin children.