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Jon Hartley and Jim Esposito discuss Jim’s beginnings, his career in senior roles at Goldman Sachs in New York and London, and moving to Miami to run one of the world’s largest broker-dealer and market makers, Citadel Securities. They also discuss the rising role Miami is playing in global capital markets (becoming “Wall Street South”) with Citadel’s moving its headquarters there, ongoing trends in the economy, and the rising role of AI in finance and business.
Recorded on February 27, 2026.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
As President of Citadel Securities, Jim Esposito is responsible for driving the long-term growth and success of the firm’s client and partner relationships globally.
Jim was previously co-head of the Global Banking and Markets Division at Goldman Sachs. During his 29-year tenure at Goldman Sachs, Jim served on the management committee, co-chaired the partnership committee, and was a member of the diversity and inclusion committee. Previously, Jim was co-head of the Global Investment Banking and Global Markets Divisions before they were combined, and earlier in his career was co-head of the Global Financing Group.
Jim earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Jim is a Trustee at Brown, serves on the Board of Overseers at Tuck and is a board member of Beat the Streets New England.
Jon Hartley is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Research Fellow at the UT-Austin Civitas Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon also is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution, a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and the chair of the Economic Club of Miami.
Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a Fixed Income Portfolio Construction and Risk Management Associate and as a Quantitative Investment Strategies Client Portfolio Management Senior Analyst and in various policy/governmental roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.
Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
ABOUT THE SERIES:
Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.
For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/
