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Speaker Bios

Jeff Bandman

Jeff Bandman is Founder and Principal of Bandman Advisors, an advisory practice focused on helping financial services clients ranging from start-ups to global firms meet innovation and regulatory strategy challenges. He is also FinTech regulation mentor for the Techstars Barclays FinTech NYC Accelerator and a member of the Blockchain for Algorithmic Regulation and Compliance initiative at University College London.

Previously, Jeff served at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As FinTech Advisor to Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, Jeff was Founding Director and architect of LabCFTC, the CFTC's new hub for engagement with FinTech innovation. He led CFTC FinTech and RegTech coordination with domestic and international regulators, and an international regulator workstream on post-trade digital innovation. He established and chaired the CFTC blockchain/DLT working group. Jeff also led the CFTC's Division of Clearing and Risk, which oversees most of the world’s largest clearinghouses. He led negotiations resulting in “Clearinghouse Equivalence” with the European Commission. He joined the CFTC as Special Counsel to Chairman Timothy Massad, and also led the CFTC’s Office of International Affairs. Jeff worked for many years in the financial industry in New York and London. As Head of Partnerships & Alliances of LCH’s SwapClear, he helped design and launch its service for clearing swaps through US intermediaries, devised the innovative CCP2 program and led development of the SMART margin simulator. Before that he rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald’s market data business after the events of September 11. Mr. Bandman started his career as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York, and was Americas General Counsel for Prebon Yamane. He graduated from Yale magna cum laude, with honors in History and English, and Stanford Law School, with honors as a member of the “Order of the Coif". He is a five-time Jeopardy! Champion and spent his winnings backpacking around Africa, Asia and Europe.

Andrew Chang 

Andrew Chang is the COO of Paxos. He has over a decade of operational experience at technology companies and startups, and is a partner at seed fund Liberty City Ventures. Before joining Paxos, Andrew served as a Lead Strategic Partner Development Manager at Google, working in business development for display ad products. Prior to that, he was the COO of ConditionOne and an associate at TechStars New York. He also has experience managing delivery at WPP-owned Kantar Video and innovation in research, analytics and digital media at 360i, a digital marketing agency.

Andrew earned his MBA from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and a B.S. in Operations and Technology Management from Boston College. 
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Francesco D'Acunto

Francesco D’Acunto is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the R.H. Smith School of Business (University of Maryland). Francesco obtained a Phd in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley. His work has been covered by leading US media such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, US News & World Report, and CBS radio, as well as foreign outlets such as the Economist, World Economic Forum reports, Daily Mail, The Globe and Mail, Haaretz, Die Welt, and La Stampa.

Francesco studies the effects of robo-advising on individual investor behavior and on the operations of financial institutions. He also studies the effects of cultural norms on financial decision-making and of government intervention in lending markets. His research is based on individual-level proprietary data sets, which also provides financial companies with a scientific analysis of their data and hence with prescriptions on how to optimize their operations. Grant Easterbrook
Kathleen Derose

Professor Kathleen DeRose

Kathleen DeRose joined New York University Stern School of Business as a Clinical Associate Professor of Finance in September 2017, after having been an Executive-in-Residence and adjunct professor at the School since 2016. She teaches courses in Foundations of FinTech and Entrepreneurial Finance and spearheads FinTech initiatives at Stern, including FinTech curriculum design, FinTech joint research projects with industry and FinTech events. She has also taught courses in FinTech and Global Investing at NYU Shanghai. Professor DeRose serves on the board of Evolute AG, a Swiss wealth technology company. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Her primary areas of interest include FinTech, entrepreneurial finance, asset and wealth management, portfolio management, lotteries in financial decision-making and as public goods funding mechanisms, and China’s political economy.


Before joining NYU Stern, Professor DeRose was Global Head of Investment Process and subsequently Head of Strategy and Solutions at Credit Suisse, a founding partner and head of Portfolio Management and Research at a New York hedge fund, a Managing Director and head of large capitalization portfolio management at Bessemer Trust and a Managing Director and portfolio manager at Deutsche Bank (successor to Zurich Insurance and Scudder Stevens and Clark). She began her career as an investment analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan).

Professor DeRose received her B.A. degree in American History from Princeton University; her M.B.A. degree from the NYU Stern, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Paris (HEC) and the London School of Economics combined (TRIUM) program; and a M.Sc. with distinction in Contemporary Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford, where she received the Humphrey Ko prize for best master’s thesis in her graduating year.

Vasant Dhar

Professor Vasant Dhar

Vasant Dhar is a Data Scientist whose research addresses the following question: when do computers make better decisions than humans?

The research is grounded in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and data big and small. The major problem areas addressed in the research are finance, healthcare, education, business, and sports. In the financial arena, for example, his major question asks whether you should trust your money to a robot. For example, see: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/big.2015.28999.vda

Similar questions apply in the other arenas. For example, could computers make better teachers than humans? Could they offer valuable healthcare advice to us that experts aren’t able to provide? Could they become valuable assistant coaches?

As recently as five years ago, it would have seemed preposterous to think that computers might drive cars better than humans in our lifetime yet driverless cars are here already. Computers are making more and more decisions for us, and increasingly so in areas that require human judgment. How might we leverage the rapid advances in machine intelligence in areas such as finance, healthcare, and education?

Professor Dhar teaches courses on Trading Strategies, Prediction, Data Science, and Foundations of FinTech. He also writes on IT-driven transformation such as the one currently driving education, and implications for how firms talk to customers and partners and govern data responsibly.

He has written over 70 research articles, funded by grants from industry and the National Science Foundation. He pioneered the use of machine learning for predictive modeling on Wall Street across proprietary systematic trading, risk management, and customer and salesforce management. He is a frequent speaker in academic as well as industrial forums.

Professor Dhar received his Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, and his Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Grant Easterbrook

Grant Easterbrook is the co-founder of Dream Forward. Dream Forward sells businesses 401(k) plans with lower costs, no conflicts of interest, easier admin, and new artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology that can talk to employees about their concerns and questions. Prior to founding Dream Forward, Easterbrook was one of the first fintech analyst and has been tracking fintech (with a particular focus on robo advice) since 2011. He has been cited on the topic of fintech in the media over 100 times, including in leading outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Forbes. Easterbrook is a graduate of Bowdoin College and resides in New York City.

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Timothy Flacke

Timothy Flacke is the Executive Director of Commonwealth (formerly D2D Fund), a mission-driven organization that builds solutions to make people financially secure. Commonwealth collaborates with consumers, the financial services industry, policy makers, and mission-driven organizations to discover ideas, pilot solutions, and drive innovations to scale, so that wealth – of opportunity, tools, financial assets – is possible for everyone. Tim co-launched the organization in 2001 and has served on its board of directors since that time, drawing on twenty-five years’ experience in the non-profit and private sectors helping working people to build savings. Commonwealth’s efforts have thrice impacted the federal tax code and spawned new financial products and public policies responsible for helping over 350,000 consumers to save over $200MM. Before Commonwealth, Tim worked as an independent consultant, author, grant writer and VISTA volunteer in the field of financial empowerment and asset development. Earlier in his career, Tim held leadership positions in corporate human resources and risk management for Filene's Basement, Inc. He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Boston College.
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Vishal Garg

Vishal Garg is the Founder and CEO of Better Mortgage, working to make financing a home simpler, faster and better for all Americans. Mr. Garg’s passion is using technology to improve customer experience and credit outcomes in consumer finance. In addition to leading Better Mortgage, Vishal also serves as the Founding Partner of 1/0 Capital, a credit and financial technology incubator and the Chairman of Climb Credit, The Number, and Phoenix Holdings. Mr. Garg previously founded Future Finance, which is today Europe’s largest private student finance company. Prior to Future Finance, Mr. Garg was the founder, President & CFO of MyRichUncle (2005 NASDAQ IPO), which pioneered data driven online student lending. Mr. Garg founded MyRichUncle at the age of 21 and grew it into the fourth largest private student loan originator in the US. Prior to MyRichUncle, Vishal was an Analyst in the Mergers & Acquisition department at Morgan Stanley and an Emerging Markets Trader for the Strategos Fund.Mr. Garg came to America when he was 7, grew up in Queens, attended Stuyvesant High School and graduated from NYU Stern with highest honors. He believes in public education, a fair chance and the American dream.
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David Geale

David is Director of Policy at the Financial Conduct Authority. He is responsible for policy development across a wide range of areas both retail and wholesale, and oversees the FCA’s Innovation Hub. David has worked in regulation at the FCA (and its predecessor the FSA) for more than 14 years, spanning a number of different roles in both Policy and Supervision. Prior to his current position, he was Head of Savings, Investment and Distribution Policy. During his time at the FCA, he has been involved in leading and delivering a number of large scale initiatives including the Retail Distribution Review and more recently the development of the Senior Managers and Certification regime. He has also recently overseen the launch of the organisation’s Innovation Hub. Outside of the regulator, David is Chair of G20/OECD Task Force on Financial Consumer Protection. Prior to joining the regulator, he worked in the financial services industry for 10 years gaining experience in banking, financial advice and mortgages. David is a British national.

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Professor Sabrina T. Howell

Sabrina Howell is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business. She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Professor Howell’s research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, innovation, fintech, energy, and China. She is the recipient of the 2015 AQR Top Finance Graduate Award at Copenhagen Business School and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Professor Howell received her B.A. in Economics and East Asian Studies from Yale University and her Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government, Economics track from Harvard University. She previously worked as an energy consultant for Charles River Associates in Houston, and on energy security policy for Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) in Washington DC.

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Adrian Johnson

Adrian is the Managing Director of Startupbootcamp Fintech New York City, a leading accelerator with programs in 20 cities around the world. Startupbootcamp has invested in and accelerated over 500 startups.  Our fintech vertical is the fastest growing vertical with 55 corporate partners and 6 global programs in New York, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Mumbai, and Mexico City. 

Adrian is a former coder turned entrepreneur with 15 years experience as a founder. He has founded multiple tech based startups and now focuses on coaching founders and startups. After studying business at Oxford, he continued his work as a Fellow of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Saïd Business School.
Michael Kearns

Michael Kearns

Michael Kearns is a professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds the National Center Chair. He has secondary appointments in the Department of Economics, and in the departments of Statistics and Operations, Information, and Decisions in the Wharton School. He is the founding director of the Warren Center for Network and Data Sciences and the founding co-director of Penn Engineering's Networked and Social Systems Engineering Program. He is chief scientist of MANA Partners, a trading, technology, and asset management firm.

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Jennifer Lee

Jennifer is one of the three team members leading the fintech investment practice at Edison Partners, a growth equity firm with over 1.2B assets under management.

Prior to joining Edison, she conducted comprehensive financial analysis on select European equities and wrote proprietary value-oriented fundamental long/short investment theses for hedge fund clients of Commerzbank. During her MBA, she evaluated venture capital investment prospects and strategic business development opportunities for the Associated Press.

Jennifer started her career at ForgeRock, a global leader in identity management and cybersecurity with a unique history stemming from Sun Microsystems. As the first sales executive of the company, she closed deals across all geographies and industry verticals, while guiding and building the company in its rapid expansion. She also hired and managed team members and saw the company through successful Series A through C, totaling $52M in funding. Throughout her tenure, the company revenue grew in excess of 100%+ YoY, including 200%+ sales growth during the last year of her term.

Jennifer holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins University.
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Jean-Marc Levy

Jean-Marc is the Chief Executive Officer of ComplySci. He is responsible for driving the company’s strategy and growth, overseeing new product development and innovation, and expansion into new markets.

Jean-Marc is a recognized leader in the Ethics & Compliance industry and prior to joining ComplySci, he was President of LRN, a global leading provider of ethics and compliance solutions. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Issuer Services with Intercontinental Exchange NYSE (NYSE: ICE), where he led NYSE Governance Services, a provider of corporate governance, risk, and ethics and compliance tools and services, to boards of directors and governance and compliance professionals.

Jean-Marc has an extensive track record of building fast-growing information and services businesses. He was Chief Financial and Business Development Officer with TheMarkets.com LLC, a financial technology firm he helped grow to a user base of more than 2,400 institutional investment management firms worldwide before it was sold to The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: SPGI) in 2010.

Jean-Marc holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BS in Computer Science from Tulane University’s School of Engineering.
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Scott Mullins

Scott Mullins is Head of Worldwide Financial Services Business Development at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he is responsible for leading the development and execution of AWS’s strategic initiatives in the financial services industry around the world. In his 17 year career, Scott has worked for firms such as JPMorgan Chase, Nasdaq, Merrill Lynch, and Penson Worldwide. As a founding member of Nasdaq's FinQloud team, Scott was responsible for global business and product strategy and a co-inventor of the first cloud-based storage solution for compliance with regulatory records retention requirements. Before joining Nasdaq, Scott ran Surveillance and Trading Compliance for one of the nation’s largest clearing broker-dealers, with responsibility for regulatory response, emerging regulatory initiatives, and compliance matters related to the firm’s trading and execution services divisions. Scott’s involvement in emerging financial services regulatory initiatives has resulted in numerous presentations to members of the House Financial Services Committee, SEC Commissioners and key staff, as well as FINRA’s leadership on proper implementation and possible impact of proposed regulations. Prior to his roles in regulatory compliance, Scott spent 10 years as an equity trader. A graduate of Texas A&M University, Scott is a subject matter expert quoted in industry media, a recognized speaker at industry events, and serves on the advisory board of the FinTech Sandbox.
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Jake Perlman-Garr

Jake is an entrepreneur, advisor, and angel investor. He is currently the CEO & Co-Founder of Datavore, a software startup focused on democratizing access to analytics in financial institutions. Previously, Jake spent the majority of his career working at Goldman Sachs, where he focused on strategy and analysis for the Firm’s Executives and Board. He was additionally an early employee of two startups. Jake is also the founder of the Goldman Sachs Founders Network, a group for connecting the company's alumni in the startup world, and the Whiteboard Club, a group dedicated to hands-on education for engineers and data scientists in deep learning techniques. He received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Matthew Plosser

Matthew Plosser is a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At present, he is empirically examining the impact of technology on the mortgage industry. He has written several papers that estimate the impact of regulation and supervision on the banking industry. Matt has also written on the borrowing decisions of households in response to employment shocks, on the relation between monetary policy and the risk premium, and on the underlying causes of buyout booms. His research has appeared in the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Intermediation. He received a PhD and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business in 2012. Prior to graduate school, he worked in the investment banking and asset management industries. His undergraduate degree is from Princeton University.

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Max Niederste-Ostholt (left)

Co-Founder, Chief Financial Officer -- Over a decade in the financial industry, working in the investment banking divisions of Lehman Brothers until 2008 and Barclays from 2008 to 2016.  At both firms, Max was a member of the healthcare investment banking group, most recently as Director focused on M&A and financing transactions, supported the execution of over $100 billion of financing and M&A transactions across various sectors including the healthcare IT, and insurance spaces. 


Rob Petrozzo (center)

Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer -- 15 years of experience in the product design, direction, and development space.  Previous roles developing & designing brands & digital offerings from Kanye West, Johnson & Johnson, NFL, Hearst, Roche, and Fortune 500 companies across 12 countries.  Rob led product & Ux at ScrollMotion as Creative Director starting in 2010, at KeyMe Head of UX & Product Design on all platfroms from 2014-2016, and Convene developing digital products prior to Rally Rd.


Christopher Bruno (right)

Founder, CEO -- Serial entrepreneur with extensive experience financing, managing, and scaling venture-backed media companies.  Chris cofounded Network of One, a data-driven content investment platform focused on the YouTube market as well as Healthguru, a leading health information video platform on the web (acquired by Propel Media). Previous roles include associate at Village Ventures & analyst to senior management at Everyday Health (NYSE: EVDY).
 

David Ronick

David is a NYC-based entrepreneur. David is currently developing a consumer financial service called WinWin that will help young Americans build emergency savings funds, using the excitement of winning as encouragement. Previously, David was co-founder of Stash, an app that has helped over 1 million young Americans start investing. Prior ventures include a TechStars e-commerce business, an alternative advertising network, and an early social network. David is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Brown University.
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Andreas Ruflin

Andreas holds a Master degree in Finance and is a CFA charterholder. He is a member of the executive committee at Evolute Group Ltd. and responsible for the product development. Evolute provides a comprehensive digital wealth management solution for banks and independent wealth mangers, combining deep regulatory knowledge and sophisticated investment technology on one platform - a ground-breaking new hybrid investment advisory approach. Andreas has more than 15 years of experience in the wealth- and asset management industry being at the cutting edge of innovation. He has been working for various companies, such as Accenture, Credit Suisse Group and the Swiss market infrastructure provider SIX.
Sharad Sharma

Sharad Sharma

Sharad Sharma has over two decades of experience in the Internet, Enterprise Software and Infrastructure markets and is a prominent voice in India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. He has co-founded iSPIRT, a think tank focused on building the software product ecosystem in India. He is a member of SEBI’s Financial and Regulatory Technology Committee, RBI’s High Level Taskforce on Public Credit Registry and a special invitee to the National Digital Payments Committee. He has also chaired the Product Forum at NASSCOM. Prior to this, he headed Yahoo! India R&D where he led product engineering for all emerging markets and some global products. He has also held senior R&D role at VERITAS, Symantec, Lucent Technologies and AT&T. He was given the R&D Visionary Award by Zinnov in 2008. Sharad co-founded Teltier, a wireless infrastructure startup now part of CISCO and is an active technology angel investor through LetsVenture. Sharad was the Chairperson of the IEEE Student Chapter while at the Delhi College of Engineering, and started its Minicomputer Club in 1984.
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Michael Sidgmore

Michael Sidgmore is a Venture Partner at Broadhaven Capital Partners, where he invests in early-stage FinTech companies. He is on the Board of Liveoak Technologies and Credijusto and on the Advisory Board at Trizic. Michael is also the Founder of Let's Humanize Finance, a podcast that interviews FinTech innovators who are changing how we interact with money. Prior to Broadhaven, Michael was a pre-product employee and a Senior Vice President at iCapital Network, a financial technology company that provides simplified and tech-enabled access to alternative investments at lower costs and lower minimums. Michael helped build the family office and RIA networks and helped grow the platform to over $2.1 billion of assets. Prior to iCapital Network, Michael was the first sales hire and the Director of Institutional Investments at Mosaic, a financing platform for affordable home solar loans that has surpassed $1 billion of loans originated and has received a $200 million equity investment from Warburg Pincus. Michael started his career as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs' Principal Strategic Investments team in London, a direct investing team focused on market structure and FinTech investing. Michael is an Advisory Board Member for Village Capital's US FinTech Program and a Special Advisor to Panorama Point Partners.
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Drew Sievers

Drew Sievers is one of North America's foremost innovators in financial technology.

Drew is the CEO at Trizic, a leading provider of enterprise grade, white labeled digital advice and workflow technology to firms like John Hancock/ManuLife and FIS/Sungard. Trizic powers wealth-tech solutions for banks, credit unions, asset managers, broker dealers and RIAs.

Drew was the Co-Founder and CEO of mobile banking/payments leader mFoundry, which was pivotal in establishing the North American mobile banking industry. mFoundry was acquired for $165MM by FIS.

Drew is a founding partner and Managing Director at Operative Capital, and investor in late seed and Series A fintech companies. OC has stakes in fintech leaders Abra, Digit, Apple Pie Capital, Boomtown, Sensibill, Sharespost, and Trizic.

Drew was the President of interactive agency powerhouse Semaphore Partners, which was acquired in 2002 by Publicis for $90MM. Drew directed the creation of technology-based marketing/commerce solutions for Fortune 500 companies like Toyota, Lexus, Néstlé, and P&G.

Drew spent 5 years in Japan as Asia Regional Director for Saatchi & Saatchi, and was also responsible for co-founding Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive, leading Toyota's early forays into internet technology.
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Dan Siracuse

Dan is Trumid's Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Trumid, Dan held senior level strategy, operational and financial roles at BlackRock and Credit Suisse Asset Management. Before that, he was CFO and Head of Strategy at Elm Ridge Capital Management, and started his career at Silver Point Capital. Dan has a B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Arun Sundararajan


Professor Arun Sundararajan 
 

Arun Sundararajan is Professor and the Robert L. and Dale Atkins Rosen Faculty Fellow at New York University’s (NYU) Stern School of Business, and an affiliated faculty member at many of NYU’s interdisciplinary research centers, including the Center for Data Science and the Center for Urban Science and Progress. His new book, “The Sharing Economy,” was published by the MIT Press in June 2016.

Professor Sundararajan's research studies how digital technologies transform business, government and civil society. He has published over 50 scientific papers in peer-reviewed academic journals and conferences, and over 30 op-eds in outlets that include The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Wired, Le Monde, Bloomberg View, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Economic Times, Harvard Business Reviewand Quartz. His scholarship has been recognized by six Best Paper awards, two Google Faculty awards, and a variety of other grants. He has given more than 250 invited talks at industry, government and academic forums internationally. Watch his 2016 Davos panel. He has provided expert input about the digital economy as part of Congressional testimony, and to city, state and federal government agencies that include the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the National Economic Council, the Federal Reserve Bank, the White House and the Federal Trade Commission. He is a widely sought-after commentator by top media platforms. Keep up with his latest views and opinions.

Arun is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Technology, Values and Policy, a Fellow of the Urban Design Forum, and serves as an advisor to organizations that include the City of New York, the City of Seoul, the Female Founders Fund, the Internet Society of China, OuiShare, the National League of Cities, the Royal Society for the Arts and the Center for Global Enterprise. He works with tech companies on issues of strategy and regulation, and with non-tech companies trying to understand how to forecast and address changes induced by digital technologies. He teaches in NYU Stern executive education programs in the U.S., Europe and Asia, focusing primarily on digital strategy and governance. He teaches full-time MBA students about hi-tech entrepreneurship, undergraduates about networks, crowds and markets, and doctoral students about digital economics.
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Gillian Tett

Gillian Tett serves as US managing editor, leading the FT’s editorial operations in the region across all platforms. She writes weekly columns for the Financial Times, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues throughout the globe. Tett’s past roles at the FT have included US managing editor (2010-2012), assistant editor, capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau chief, and a reporter in Russia and Brussels. Most recently in 2016, Tett received honorary degrees from the University of Exeter in July and the University of Miami in May. In 2015, Tett was given an honorary doctorate from Lancaster University in the UK, one of the top ten British universities. In 2014, she was named Columnist of the Year in the British Press Awards and was the first recipient of the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award. Her other honors include a SABEW Award for best feature article (2012), President’s Medal by the British Academy (2011), being recognized as Journalist of the Year (2009) and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) by the British Press Awards, and as Senior Financial Journalist of the Year (2007) by the Wincott Awards. In June 2009 her book Fool’s Gold won Financial Book of the Year at the inaugural Spear’s Book Awards. Tett’s latest book The Silo Effect, published by Simon & Schuster in September 2015, looks at the global economy and financial system through the lens of cultural anthropology.
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Boris Vallée

Boris Vallée is an assistant professor in the Finance Unit of Harvard Business School. He teaches the Finance II course in the MBA required curriculum. Professor’s Vallée’s research traces the motives behind and the effects of financial innovation in recent decades. He pursues this line of inquiry through empirical studies of corporate finance, household finance, public finance, and financial institutions, developing novel data sets and measures. His work has been cited by Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a Ph.D. in finance and a M.Sc. in management, both from HEC Paris, and is a CFA Charterholder. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Professor Vallée was an investment banker at Deutsche Bank in London.
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Ryan VanGrack

Ryan VanGrack is Special Counsel and Advisor to the Co-Directors of the Enforcement Division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In addition, Mr. VanGrack leads the SEC’s FinTech Working Group, which manages the Commission’s efforts related to financial innovation. Before joining the Enforcement Division, Mr. VanGrack was Senior Advisor to Chair Mary Jo White from 2014 to 2017, providing counsel on a broad range of regulatory matters, including enforcement strategy, compliance policies, asset management, cybersecurity, and international coordination. Prior to his time at the SEC, Mr. VanGrack served in the White House as Deputy Associate Counsel, where he oversaw the selection, examination and confirmation of the President’s Cabinet and handled congressional oversight issues. He previously worked at the law firm of Williams & Connolly, focusing on financial services litigation and government investigations. Mr. VanGrack received a B.A. from Duke University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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Sanjay Venkat

Sanjay is a lifelong technologist with over 25 years of programming experience and deep expertise in machine learning, math, and databases. He is currently the CTO & Co-Founder of Datavore, a software startup focused on democratizing access to analytics in financial institutions. Previously, Sanjay led multiple risk management technology initiatives at Goldman Sachs after beginning his career in computer security at KPMG and Ernst & Young. He has co-founded four other startups. Sanjay received an MBA from Oklahoma State University, an MA from Loyola College, and a BCom from the University of Madras.
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Marie L. Wieck

In her more than 25 years with IBM, Marie has held a variety of technical and executive roles in IBM's hardware, software, and services units. She is passionate about innovation from diverse teams and driving business impact from new technologies. In January 2017, Marie was named into her current position as general manager of Blockchain, which is posed to transform business processes and transactions. Marie is responsible for IBM’s participation in the Hyperledger project and in building an open blockchain ecosystem for developers and service providers, and to create and run enterprise blockchain networks and solutions. Marie holds an M.B.A. from New York University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University and a B.S. in Engineering from The Cooper Union. She is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Marie is on the board of the Anita Borg Institute and Charity Navigator, and co-chair of National Association of Female Executives (NAFE) Roundtable. She is the executive sponsor of IBM's Global Work/Life Initiative. In June 2015, Marie was named to the WITI Hall of Fame for her passionate support of women in technology. In 2016 Marie was recognized as a Women of Vision STEM Champion by NAFE.
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Patrick Wood

Patrick Wood is Head of Academic Research at Kensho Technologies, the leading provider of data analytics to sophisticated financial institutions and critical government agencies. In addition to serving the firm’s commercial and national security clients, Patrick is responsible for Kensho's many collaborations with distinguished academic institutions and research teams worldwide.

David Yermack

Professor David L. Yermack, PhD

David L. Yermack is the Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Business Transformation at New York University Stern School of Business. He serves as Chairman of the Finance Department and Director of the NYU Pollack Center for Law and Business. Professor Yermack teaches joint MBA - Law School courses in Restructuring Firms & Industries and Bitcoin & Cryptocurrencies, as well as PhD research courses in corporate governance, executive compensation, and distress and restructuring.

Professor Yermack has been with NYU Stern since 1994. His primary research areas include boards of directors, executive compensation, and corporate finance. Professor Yermack has published more than 25 articles in leading academic journals in Finance, Accounting, Economics, and Law. He is a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has been a Visiting Scholar at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

Professor Yermack received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics (1985), Master of Business Administration (1991), Juris Doctor (1991), Master of Arts in Business Economics (1993), and Doctor of Philosophy in Business Economics (1994) from Harvard University.