The recent passing of John Hull (1946-2026) is mourned throughout the risk professional community for his life-long dedication as an educator and enduring impact on financial risk management and derivatives. His legacy includes foundational textbooks and publications and significant contributions to GARP’s FRM program and curriculum.
Professor Hull, who served on the FRM Advisory Committee, “had an intellectual impact on the profession, and on the FRM designation, that cannot be overstated,” commented GARP President and CEO Richard Apostolik. “Beyond his extraordinary professional legacy, everyone at GARP who had the pleasure of working with him knew him to be kind, genuine, and generous.”
“John was an icon in the finance field and beloved member of the Rotman community,” stated Susan Christoffersen, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, where Mr. Hull joined the faculty in 1988 and was conferred the rare distinction of University Professor in 2016.
“John leaves behind such a rich legacy of pedagogy in the field that no words can do justice to describing its lasting effects,” says Viral Acharya, C.V. Starr Professor of Economics, NYU Stern School of Business.
“Professor Hull’s relationship with GARP and the FRM program spanned decades and was an important part of its intellectual foundation,” said William May, the association’s Managing Director, Global Head of Certifications and Educational Programs. “Beyond authoring globally recognized textbooks, he developed material specifically for the FRM books and curriculum, ensuring that the program reflected both academic rigor and real-world relevance.
John Hull: “Modest, kind, generous with his time.”
“As a respected member of the FRM Advisory Committee,” May continued, “he provided invaluable guidance on the evolution of the syllabus and helped maintain the designation’s high standards. He was also a frequent and highly valued speaker at GARP Conventions and Risk Symposiums, and a generous participant in webinars, where he brought clarity and insight to complex risk topics for our global community. Ever supportive of the next generation of risk professionals, Professor Hull warmly welcomed GARP to speak with his students at the Rotman School of Management, strengthening the bridge between academic excellence and professional practice.”
As recounted in a January 31 Rotman School tribute: “His research had an applied focus and was concerned with the impact of stochastic volatility on the pricing and hedging of options, the valuation of interest rate derivatives and credit derivatives, numerical procedures, the calculation of value at risk and expected shortfall, the evaluation of model risk, and the regulation of financial institutions. In recent years, in his research and teaching he focused on machine learning and its applications to finance. He was a consultant to many financial institutions and governments worldwide and won numerous teaching and research awards.”
“Despite his prominence, he was modest, kind and generous with his time. He will be very fondly remembered and sadly missed,” Rotman School Dean Christoffersen said.
At Rotman, Professor Hull was actively involved in the development and administration of the Master of Financial Risk Management (MFRM) and Master of Finance (MFin) programs and helped establish the FinHub Financial Innovation Lab.
Hull earned mathematics degrees from the University of Cambridge (BA and MA), an MA in Operational Research from Lancaster University, and a PhD in Finance from Cranfield University. Among his honors were the International Association of Financial Engineers (now the International Association for Quantitative Finance) 1999 Financial Engineer of the Year, and the University of Toronto Northrop Frye Award.
His books included “Machine Learning in Business: An Introduction to the World of Data Science” (now in its 3rd edition); “Risk Management and Financial Institutions” (6th edition); “Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives” (11th edition), and “Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets” (9th edition).
Acharya, who is Senior Advisor to the FRM Advisory Committee, regards "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives" as a “signature contribution” in financial economics, mathematical finance and risk management.
“As a computer scientist who was trying to learn, and migrate to, financial economics in 1995,” the NYU Stern professor recalls, “John's book was a first exposure of sorts at a time when derivatives research was still in an exciting stage. The in-depth knowledge his book provided has been invaluable in my research and teaching ever since.”
“His academic contributions ran deep,” AI-driven investment firm Rebellion Research memorialized. “The Hull–White model, developed with Alan White, introduced a time dependent drift to short-rate modeling, allowing interest rate models to fit the observed yield curve while remaining arbitrage-free. It became an industry standard for pricing interest rate derivatives, including Bermudan swaptions and structured products. Across trading floors worldwide, the model became part of the daily machinery of risk.”
“After the global financial crisis,” the firm added, “Hull emerged as a leading voice on Credit Value Adjustment and counterparty risk. He clarified the mechanics of CVA, wrong-way risk, and bilateral exposure in over-the-counter markets. His frameworks became foundational to how banks measure and manage counterparty credit risk in a post-2008 world.”