Jeff Shames is the retired chairman of MFS Investment Management and the boards of trustees of the MFS Funds. He is the Executive in Residence at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

He joined MFS in 1983 and became president and joined the board in 1993. He was named chairman and CEO in 1998. In 2002 he retired as CEO and retained the chairman title until his retirement in 2004.

Shames teaches several Sloan Innovation Period courses, introducing students to leadership styles and values as well as to the challenges specific to the financial services and nonprofit sectors. Each year he also teaches a course on investment management at MIT Sloan.

He is a member of the board of trustees of the Berklee College of Music, the X Prize Foundation and City Year, a national service organization. He is also co-founder and trustee of Hurricane Voices, a breast cancer foundation. He is a member of the board of directors of the Elan Corporation and serves on the advisory board of the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Shames graduated from Wesleyan University and from the MIT Sloan School of Management. In between college and graduate school he served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji.