Dr. Cindy Ma
Managing Director
Houlihan Lokey
Dr. Ma is a Managing Director in Houlihan Lokey’s New York office, where her primary responsibilities as part of the firm’s Financial Opinions & Advisory Services (FAS) practice include providing valuations, financial opinions and expert witness testimony. She leads the firm’s Derivatives and Risk Management team. She has nearly two decades of training, academic expertise and hands-on experience in commodities, derivatives, securities, structured transactions, hedging strategies and risk management issues. She has a deep understanding of the economic, operational and institutional aspects of futures, forward, swap and option markets.
Before joining Houlihan Lokey, Dr. Ma worked at NERA Economic Consulting, where she established and led the employee stock options valuation practice. Before that, she was a partner at Ernst & Young, where she directed several significant litigation projects related to derivatives valuation, securities trading, hedging and risk management. She also advised the boards of directors of energy and financial companies on risk management, valuation and corporate governance issues. She spent five years trading derivatives and designing new risk-management products for a global commodity firm. She has served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, where she taught an M.B.A.-level course in futures and options. She’s also developed several corporate training programs on the complex aspects of capital markets.
Dr. Ma has published several articles on energy, derivatives, risk management, valuation and corporate governance. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on energy futures and options markets. She also co-authored a college textbook on futures and options.
Dr. Ma graduated with highest distinction from Indiana University with a B.S. in accounting, and from Columbia University Graduate School of Business with a Ph.D. in finance. She holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst and is a Certified Public Accountant. She has been a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s Option Valuation Group. She is registered with FINRA (formerly the NASD) as a General Securities Representative (Series 7 and 63).