Norma & Russ Ramsey
2010 We Are Family Visionary Award Honorees
Russ Ramsey
W. Russell (Russ) Ramsey is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Ramsey Asset Management (RAM), an alternative asset management firm with aggregate assets in excess of $500MM. Founded in 2001, RAM is an institutional firm which has a range of directional equity-hedging products which leverage a common research platform, fundamental analysis, and a proprietary approach to identifying investment opportunities. Key to the firm's approach is identifying those companies that exhibit either improving or declining business prospects for which the firm believes its view is sufficiently divergent from that of Wall Street.
Russ is also known for his role as Co-founder, President, and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group (NYSE: FBR) and its sister company FBR Capital Markets (NASDAQ: FBCM). After co-founding FBR in 1989, Russ helped the firm capitalize on the broad institutionalization of the capital markets, particularly during the downturn of the late 1980's and early 1990's by correctly analyzing the troubles and solutions faced by both the financial services and real estate industries at that time. Russ co-founded FBR's investment banking division, helping the firm become one of the nation's premier underwriters, and co-founded FBR's first venture capital fund focused on the Internet, e-commerce, and software, and simultaneously launching FBR's Technology Investment Banking and Research practices. Under his leadership, FBR completed tens of billions of initial public offerings, secondary offerings, private placements, and mergers and acquisitions.
Newsweek magazine has recognized Russ for his successes by naming him one of the four "people to see" in the Washington financial community. Russ sits on the National Geographic Society's Council of Advisors and is the Chairman of George Washington University's Board of Trustees. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has served on the Governor's Commission on Information Technology, was a Trustee for the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges, and is a founding member of One Virginia.
Mr. Ramsey is a native Washingtonian and has been an active philanthropist through the Ramsey Foundation, which has funded many causes including Knock Out Abuse Against Women, the innovative Venture Philanthropy Partners, four-year scholarships for the DC Capital Area's Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Potomac School, Fight Night, Fight for Children, and the Inova Fairfax Hospital System. Russ received a B.S. in Business Administration from George Washington University and was named to the GWU All-Century Baseball Team and Athletic Hall of Fame.
Norma Ramsey
Norma C. Ramsey is the Director of The Ramsey Foundation, a private charitable foundation dedicated to children, education and healthcare. Ms. Ramsey is involved with many charitable causes and serves as a trustee of the Inova Health System Foundation Board, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic, The Larry King Cardiac Foundation, The Wolf Trap Foundation, The Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. In 2004, she was awarded the Larry King "Spirit of Life Award" for extraordinary and lasting contributions in philanthropy. A Maryland native, Ms. Ramsey attended the University of Maryland and is a member of Kappa Delta Sorority and Phi Kappa Phi. Ms. Ramsey currently lives in Great Falls, Virginia with her husband and four children.