# Rory Riggs

> Rory Riggs is an inventor, executive, and investor who applies one system, the Locus Model, across biotechnology, finance, and economics. Mr. Riggs is Executive Chairman of Syntax Data, which has built a foundational coordinate-based information infrastructure for finance and economic data based on his patented Locus Model and Functional Information System (FIS).

name: Rory Riggs
type: Person
url: https://theroryriggs.com
description: Rory Riggs is an inventor, executive, and investor who applies one system, the Locus Model, across biotechnology, finance, and economics. Mr. Riggs is Executive Chairman of Syntax Data, which has built a foundational coordinate-based information infrastructure for finance and economic data based on his patented Locus Model and Functional Information System (FIS).
topics: Locus Model, Functional Coordinates, Systems Economics, Theory of Economic Systems, Locus Theory, Locus Language, Locus, Activity Cycle, Economic Physiology, Economic Morphology, Enterprise Barcode, Labor Barcode

Rory Riggs is an inventor, executive, and investor who applies one system, the Locus Model, across biotechnology, finance, and economics. Mr. Riggs is Executive Chairman of Syntax Data, which has built a foundational coordinate-based information infrastructure for finance and economic data based on his patented Locus Model and Functional Information System (FIS). As Chairman and founder of Royalty Pharma, he helped create the pharmaceutical royalty asset class, building it from a $60 million start in 1996 to the world's largest acquirer of pharmaceutical royalties. He was also a founder or early-stage investor in SUGEN, BioMatrix, FibroGen, Cibus, and Intra-Cellular Therapies, and served as a director of each. At Cibus, the leading precision gene-editing company for agriculture, he applied the same functional-systems approach to plant biology through the Rapid Trait Development System. He was previously a Managing Director at PaineWebber and CEO of RF&P, a real estate investment company owned by the Virginia State Retirement System. He is a director of the Feinstein Institute, the research arm of Northwell, and of the New York Genome Center. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and holds an MBA from Columbia University.

- Role: Executive Chairman / Founder at Syntax Data (Syntax LLC / Locus Analytics)
- Education: BA (Middlebury College), MBA (Columbia University)

Every page URL below also serves machine-readable alternates — append .jsonld, .ttl, .nt, .nq, .trig, .n3, .rdf, .trix, .rj (the site root's files live under /.well-known/authority/index.*).

## Key Pages

- [Home](https://theroryriggs.com): HomePage
- [About](https://theroryriggs.com/about): AboutPage
- [Patents - Rory Riggs](https://theroryriggs.com/patents): CollectionPage
- [Credentials - Rory Riggs](https://theroryriggs.com/credentials): Credentials
- [Courses - Rory Riggs](https://theroryriggs.com/courses): Course
- [Contact - Rory Riggs](https://theroryriggs.com/contact): AboutPage
- [Career Timeline - Rory Riggs](https://theroryriggs.com/career-timeline): AboutPage
- [Applications - Rory Riggs](https://theroryriggs.com/applications): CollectionPage

## Glossary

- [Locus Model](https://theroryriggs.com): A theoretical framework that defines the internal parts and processes of any product-producing system, giving every activity and resource a functional identity and an ordered position.
- [Functional Coordinates](https://theroryriggs.com): The coordinate system that locates any economic activity or resource by what it does and where it falls in the order of work, parallel to latitude/longitude in space and date/hour in time. Patent-backed (US 9,910,910; US 10,019,509).
- [Systems Economics](https://theroryriggs.com): The field designation for the study of economies as living systems composed of repeating, ordered functional activities and the resources that staff them.
- [Theory of Economic Systems](https://theroryriggs.com): The generalized systems theory of all activities and resources used in an economy, from which the Locus Model is built.
- [Locus Theory](https://theroryriggs.com): The comprehensive systems theory of all activities and resources used in an economy, stated in two branches: the Locus Theory of Economic Systems and the Locus Theory of People.
- [Locus Language](https://theroryriggs.com): The formal language of the model, in which activities function as verbs, resources as nouns, and a locus is a complete sentence describing real economic phenomena.
- [Locus](https://theroryriggs.com): The base unit of economic activity: a single pairing of an activity with the resources required to produce its output, which together fix the activity's position in economic space.
- [Activity Cycle](https://theroryriggs.com): The complete ordered sequence of actions a system performs to produce a product, dividing into four phases, twelve divisions, and thirty-six sub-divisions; the master construct of the Locus Model.
- [Economic Physiology](https://theroryriggs.com): The activity dimension of the model: the processes an economic system performs, treated as the physiology of a living economic organism.
- [Economic Morphology](https://theroryriggs.com): The resource dimension of the model: the parts an economic system is built from, treated as the anatomy of a living economic organism.
- [Enterprise Barcode](https://theroryriggs.com): The twenty-locus barcode capturing a company's product line and every Economic System connected to it — the model's principal commercial artifact.
- [Labor Barcode](https://theroryriggs.com): The four-field barcode capturing a job's functional role in the economy.
- [Terminality](https://theroryriggs.com): The property determining where a chain of product usage stops — the point at which a Work Group reaches the customer's Central Department Cycle and the sequence terminates.
- [Subject Resource Role](https://theroryriggs.com): The five functional contributions a subject resource can make in production: space-infrastructure, operator, direction, financial capacity, and power.
- [Structural Resources](https://theroryriggs.com): Resources used by performing a task directly and physically persistent, ready without transformation — comprising people, space, and equipment.
- [Supporting Resources](https://theroryriggs.com): Resources consumed in enabling a structural resource to perform — comprising information, money, and energy.
- [Functional Information System (FIS)](https://theroryriggs.com): The system that augments economic and financial data with standardized functional references, making business, employment, product, and service data unified, searchable, and stable across time and geography. Patent-backed (US 8,990,268; US 9,098,564; US 9,361,358).
- [FIS Coordinates](https://theroryriggs.com): The applied coordinate values assigned to each business, job, and product, identifying its functional role, position, and attributes in the economy.
- [Functional Location](https://theroryriggs.com): The position an economic element occupies in functional space, determined by what it does rather than where or when it operates. Patent-backed (US 11,657,026; US 12,242,431).
- [Functional Space](https://theroryriggs.com): The n-dimensional space in which functional locations are computed, compared, and traversed. Patent-backed (US 12,242,431).
- [Functional Proximity](https://theroryriggs.com): The measured distance between two functional locations, enabling comparison across otherwise unrelated entities.
- [Functional Trajectory](https://theroryriggs.com): The computed path an element traces through functional locations over time. Patent-backed (US 11,151,096).
- [Functional Query](https://theroryriggs.com): The retrieval method in which entities are found by functional coordinate rather than keyword, returning complete functional populations instead of name matches.
- [Systems Syntax](https://theroryriggs.com): The logical data model on which a representation of a functional system is constructed.
- [Production System Model](https://theroryriggs.com): The model identifying and defining the parts and processes necessary to produce a product, from which functional markers are derived.
- [Locus Functional Markers](https://theroryriggs.com): The coded functional references derived from the Production System Model and assigned to entities in the FIS database.
- [Functional Address](https://theroryriggs.com): The three-part identifier of any economic part: what the job does, what it produces, and where it sits in the functional order of work. Introduced in the forthcoming book Virtual Economics.
- [The Functional Triad](https://theroryriggs.com): The three-coordinate reference frame of time, space, and function, in which function supplies the 'what' that time and space cannot.
- [Economic Cartography](https://theroryriggs.com): The practice of charting an economic system by its functional coordinates so the whole can be seen, compared, and managed.
- [Natural Functional Order](https://theroryriggs.com): The stable, invariant sequence of positions that every ongoing economic system must fill, independent of geography, culture, technology, or era.
- [Bounded Order / Unbounded Fill](https://theroryriggs.com): The paired principle that the functional order is fixed while the actors, technologies, and outputs occupying it vary without limit.
- [Functional Twins](https://theroryriggs.com): The accurate functional representations that mirror real-world resources and activities inside the model.
- [Economic Twin](https://theroryriggs.com): The functional counterpart to the spatial twin supplied by GIS and the temporal twin supplied by the calendar.

## Articles

- [Cibus Names Agricultural Biotechnology Leader Craig Wichner as Chief Executive Officer](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/06/08/3308494/0/en/cibus-names-agricultural-biotechnology-leader-craig-wichner-as-chief-executive-officer-to-accelerate-growth-and-value-creation.html): 2026-06-08 — Announcement of Riggs's transition from CEO to Chairman of the Board at Cibus as Craig Wichner becomes CEO.
- [Cibus Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies of 2024](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/03/19/2848554/0/en/Cibus-Named-to-Fast-Company-s-Annual-List-of-the-World-s-Most-Innovative-Companies-of-2024.html): 2024-03-19 — Cibus named #2 Most Innovative Company in agriculture for 2024, with a quote from Riggs.
- [Cibus Opens Gene Editing Facility for Trait Production](https://sdbj.com/life-sciences/biotech-life-sciences/cibus-opens-gene-editing-facility-for-trait-production): 2023-08-02 — Coverage of the Cibus Oberlin facility opening, including Riggs's quote on applying pharmaceutical quality standards to plant biology.
- [Cibus Closes Calyxt Deal](https://www.sdbj.com/biotech/cibus-closes-calyxt-deal): 2023-06-12 — Coverage of the Cibus/Calyxt merger closing, including a Riggs quote on the combined company's patent portfolio.
- [Proposed Merger Shows That When it Comes to Gene Editing, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet](https://www.seedworld.com/canada/2023/03/09/proposed-merger-shows-that-when-it-comes-to-gene-editing-you-aint-seen-nothing-yet-3-2): 2023-03-09
- [Gene Editing to Lead a New Agricultural Revolution](https://www.futurefarming.com/author/rory-riggs): 2021-11-29 — Authored article by Rory Riggs on precision gene editing and its application to agricultural trait development.
- [Cibus Appoints Co-Founder Rory Riggs as Chief Executive Officer](https://businesswire.com/news/home/20211007005383/en/Cibus-Appoints-Co-Founder-Rory-Riggs-as-Chief-Executive-Officer): 2021-10-07 — Announcement of Rory Riggs's appointment as CEO of Cibus, naming him a pioneer in Systems Economics.
- [Syntax LLC Announces Launch of Stratified LargeCap ESG Index](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200801005010/en/Syntax-LLC-Announces-Launch-of-Stratified-LargeCap-ESG-Index): 2020-08-01 — Launch announcement with a direct quote from Riggs on ESG analytics.
- [Systems Economics: A New Prescription for Risk Management](https://www.pionline.com/industry-voices/commentary-systems-economics-new-prescription-risk-management): 2019-07-15 — Op-ed authored by Rory Riggs articulating the case for functional, systems-based classification of economic data as an alternative to conventional sector-based risk models.
- [An Index Methodology for Diversifying Business Risk](https://www.pm-research.com/content/iijindinv/8/3/21): 2017 — The Journal of Index Investing
- [Practical Applications of An Index Methodology for Diversifying Business Risk](https://www.pm-research.com/content/iijpracapp/6/2/18): 2017 — The Journal of Index Investing
- [Royalty Pharma Co-Founder Writes Open Letter to Board of Elan Ahead of EGM](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/royalty-pharma-co-founder-writes-open-letter-to-board-of-elan-ahead-of-egm-1.1431580): 2013-06-17 — Coverage of an open letter authored by Riggs as Royalty Pharma Chairman to the Elan board.

## Machine-Readable Data

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