Jerry Braakman
  • March 10, 2026

  • UC Irvine education still pays dividends for investment leader Jerry Braakman ’95, EMBA ’08

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When he was studying economics in the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences in the roaring 1990s, Jerry Braakman thought he might hit it big on Wall Street. But the first brokerage firm he worked for turned out to be a pyramid scheme, with coworkers who could have been characters straight out of Boiler Room or Wolf of Wall Street.

“I realized quickly that ethics matter to me, and that career wasn’t right,” says Braakman.

Instead, Braakman dedicated three decades to building credibility with clients and managing investments for First American Trust and its parent company. Today, the double UC Irvine graduate, who earned a bachelor’s in economics in 1995 and an EMBA in 2008, serves as president and chief investment officer of First American Trust, which at $8 billion in assets is one of the largest banks headquartered in Orange County. Braakman also oversees the investment management of $2.9 billion in client assets. And he gets to spend his days talking about his favorite things – financial markets and investments – to both investors and media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

Braakman was always good at math, but what really interested him was solving big problems. He started at UC Irvine as a physics major, using math to understand nature, then he shifted to economics to apply math to human behavior.

“We call it a financial ‘market’ because people have different opinions and value assessments as they make trades,” Braakman explains. “To me, the markets are a combination of humans interacting with the world and determining the value differently of the same investment. But it’s not purely math. If it was, then someone would have figured out the formula to win every time.”

This fascination with understanding human nature stems from Braakman’s unique upbringing. With his dad a chemical engineer and his mom an artist, his childhood was a “mix of math, science and the art of living.” He spent his childhood in Holland and traveled extensively around Europe, before his family settled in Northern California. All that time in other countries fostered a fascination with systems of government, economics and history.

Education inside and outside the classroom

One of the memorable moments of Braakman’s undergrad experience at UC Irvine was a guest lecture from economics Nobel Laureate Harry Markowitz, a pioneer in the theory and practice of building successful investment portfolios. Braakman hung on every word as Markowitz described mathematical theories he’d been testing with a billion-dollar fund in the Japanese markets, answering questions that Braakman had been pondering himself, about the predictive quality of prior investment returns versus the randomness of outcomes (hint: random won).

But it wasn’t only classroom experiences at UC Irvine that shaped Braakman. One of the most valuable aspects of higher education, Braakman believes, is meeting people from vastly different backgrounds and worldviews.

“What’s special about the traditional university experience is that you can study all day, but what you learn in conversation with your roommate at dinner is half of the education,” he says. “There’s pressure on universities today because you can take online courses to supplement specific knowledge, but you can’t learn how to work together as a team. IQ plus EQ is better than one or the other.”

Building a successful career portfolio

Braakman put both to use when he was starting out at First American Trust in the back office, learning industry basics about trusts, dividends, interest and trading. He soon spotted a multi-million dollar market opportunity for the company if they started handling their own wire transfers instead of relying on other banks for that service. He led an effort working with IT specialists and the Federal Reserve to set up servers that could handle wire transfers – back in 1998 when it was still handled on dial up modems. Soon, the company was moving billions of dollars daily through wire transfers, a service that was making millions within just a few years.

By now, Braakman’s efforts had been rewarded, and he was moving up the ranks of the organization, and he decided to return to UC Irvine’s Executive M.B.A. program, earning his degree in 2008.

“As in any good educational experience, I learned the content of the course work and from the professors. But I learned just as much if not more from my peers,” says Braakman. He remains close to his cohort today and even vacationed with them in Cabo San Lucas recently.

As he emerged as a seasoned executive, Braakman’s expert insight on financial markets is more often sought out by media outlets including Fortune, USA Today, CNBC and CNN. His unflinching opinions on the financial implications of Elon Musk’s social media posts or Boeing’s quality control, for example, especially gained traction.

The sustained value of higher education

Because he so deeply values his own higher education experience, Braakman gives back to his alma mater and supports a new generation of students. He and his wife Monica are members of the Dean’s Leadership Society, at the highest level, supporting scholarships, research and programming to sustain the school’s excellence.

“Fundraising for the school has never been more important than it is now, as the federal government is threatening to pull funding from higher education,” says Braakman.

Braakman and First American Trust have supported programming such as the School of Social Sciences Economic Forum, which brings faculty, business leaders and policy makers to discuss current financial issues. Recently, Braakman joined the social sciences Board of Councilors, a group of distinguished academic, professional and community leaders who serve as an advisory board to the school. He also serves on the advisory board of the Center for Wealth Management in the UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business.

“At some point when you’re successful, you realize it’s not the money that makes you get up and go to work, it’s the excitement of the projects, and success is more fun when you can share it as a team. I’m more interested now in mentorship, coaching, sharing knowledge – I guess that means I’m getting old,” Braakman laughs.

Staying involved with UC Irvine feeds Braakman’s craving for intellectual stimulation, and keeps introducing him to people from different backgrounds, industries and world views that he can continue learning from. It’s exactly what he valued about his undergraduate and graduate education.

“My mom told me that a lot of life is about who you surround yourself with,” he says. “It wasn’t until later on that I understood exactly what she meant.”

Even decades after graduating, UC Irvine leaders, alumni and advocates are the people Braakman chooses to surround himself with.

-Christine Byrd for the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

 

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