5th Annual Columbia SIPA/BPI Bank Regulation Conference: Lessons from COVID-19

Harit Talwar, Chairman of the Global Consumer Business, Goldman Sachs

Harit Talwar is a Partner at Goldman Sachs and Chairman of the firm’s global Consumer business, including Marcus by Goldman Sachs and its partnerships with Apple, Amazon, Walmart, JetBlue and General Motors. Throughout his diverse career, Harit has created successful franchises by focusing on customercentricity, innovation driven by digital capabilities, and hiring diverse and talented teams. Harit joined Goldman Sachs in 2015 to lead the firm’s entry into the consumer space and helped build Marcus – a “150-year-old startup” – into a modern consumer platform that today serves millions of customers. Prior to joining the firm, Harit was president of US Cards for Discover Financial Services as well as chief marketing officer. Before that, he held senior leadership roles at Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Harit earned a BA (Hons) in Economics from Delhi University in India and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Vesa Pursiainen, Assistant Professor of Finance, University of St. Gallen

Vesa Pursiainen is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of St. Gallen. Prior to pursuing PhD, he worked in the financial industry as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan, advising banks and other financial institutions, and as an investment professional at Oaktree Capital Management. He received his PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2020 and spent one year at Imperial College London and another at University of Zurich as visiting researcher during his PhD studies. 

Mr. Pursiainen’s main research interests relate to fintech and financial innovation, entrepreneurial and household finance, behavioral finance, and corporate finance. His work has been published in Journal of Finance, Science Advances and Journal of Corporate Finance, and he has frequently presented at top international finance and economics conferences, including the AFA, WFA, and EFA. His research has won several grants and awards and been featured by a number of media outlets, including the Economist and Wall Street Journal.

Julie Andersen Hill, Alton C. and Cecile Cunningham Craig Professor of Law, University of Alabama

Julie Andersen Hill is the Alton C. and Cecile Cunningham Craig Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School. She was previously a faculty member at the University of Houston Law Center. Professor Hill teaches banking and commercial law courses. Her scholarly work focuses on the unwritten rules of banking regulation. Before entering the legal academy, Professor Hill practiced law in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.  As part of the litigation group, she represented financial institutions that found themselves the subjects of government investigations. Her interest it banking was sparked by working in community banks before becoming an attorney. Professor Hill received her undergraduate degree in economics summa cum laude from Southern Utah University and her J.D. summa cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. 

Xavier Vives, Professor of Economics and Finance, IESE Business School

Xavier Vives is professor of Economics and Finance at IESE Business School. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley. Fellow of the Econometric Society since 1992; of the European Economic Association since 2004; and of the Academia Europaea since 2012. President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics for 2016-2018. He has taught at INSEAD, Harvard University, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UC Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, and New York University. His fields of interest are industrial organization and regulation, banking and financial economics. He has published more than a hundred articles in the main international journals and several books, the most recent being Competition and Stability in Banking. He is currently co-editor of JEMS.

Amy G. Brady, Chief Information Officer, Keybank

Amy G. Brady is Key’s Chief Information Officer, leading the company’s Technology, Operations and Services organization. In her role, Brady oversees all of Key’s shared services for technology, operations, data, servicing, cyber and physical security and procurement. Technology, Operations and Services is comprised of more than 5,000 individuals and plays a significant role in Key’s ability to win in the marketplace by enabling the company’s goal to build enduring client relationships through innovative solutions and an end-to-end digital experience. Technology, Operations and Services delivers innovative technology to clients, such as mobile and online banking along with voice and chat automation features, world-class operations & servicing solutions, including loan, payment, fraud and treasury services, with Contact Centers supporting our clients across consumer and commercial segments. Brady also serves on the company’s Executive Council and Executive Leadership Team. 

Brady serves in executive positions on the boards for the Achievement Centers for Children, Cleveland Leadership Center, Case Western Reserve University Corporate Advisory Board and Playhouse Square where she serves as Chair. 

Brady is the Chair of the BITS Executive Board. Most recently, Brady has been named to DuPont’s Board of Directors and serves on DuPont’s Audit Committee as well as the Environmental, Health, Safety & Sustainability Committee. She was elected as a director to the Federal Reserve Board of Cleveland. Brady was appointed by Lt. Governor Jon Husted to serve on the InnovateOhio Advisory Board.

In years 2016 through 2020, Brady was recognized by American Banker as one of the “Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking”, and listed among the "Powerful Women to Watch" from 2013 through 2015.

Brady received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Music from Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

Merit E. Janow, Dean, School of International and Public Affairs; Professor of Professional Practice in International Economic Law and International Affairs, Columbia University

Merit E. Janow is an internationally recognized expert in international trade and investment. She has extensive experience in academia, government and business, and has been deeply involved with the Asia-Pacific region for her entire life.

Janow became Dean of the faculty of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in July 2013.  SIPA is a leading school of international and public affairs in the United States, with more than 1,300 graduate students and 75 full time faculty. As Dean, she has strengthened the school by launching new programs and initiatives in the areas of technology and public policy – with a focus on cyber security and the digital economy – entrepreneurship and policy, and central banking and financial policy.” She also has grown SIPA’s faculty; supported the creation of new research centers; and completed a capital campaign and inaugurated SIPA’s second and most ambitious capital campaign.

For the past 25 years, Dean Janow has been a professor at both SIPA and Columbia Law School. She teaches graduate courses in the digital economy, international trade and investment law and policy, comparative antitrust law, and China in the global economy.  She has held a number of leadership positions at the University.  She is co-director of the APEC Study Center at Columbia Business School and previously served as Chair of the Committee for Socially Responsible Investing which oversees the proxy voting of shares owned by the Columbia University endowment.  Janow has written three books and numerous articles and frequently speaks before business, policy, and academic audiences around the world.

Professor Janow has had three periods of government service. In December 2003, while at Columbia University, she was elected as one of the seven Members of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Appellate Body, which is the court of final appeal for adjudicating trade disputes between the 154 member nations of the WTO. She was the only North American member and the first female to serve on the Appellate Body. In the course of her four years of service, she reviewed more than 30 appeals covering a diverse range of trade disputes, including technology, subsidies, agriculture, investment and trade remedies. From 1997-2000, Janow served as the Executive Director of the first international antitrust advisory committee to the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust of the US Justice Department. The key recommendations were implemented on an international basis and led to the establishment of the International Competition Network (ICN).  From 1989 to 1993, prior to joining Columbia, Janow served as Deputy Assistant USTR for Japan and China in the Executive Office of the President. In this capacity she was responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing U.S. trade policies; devising the U.S. negotiating strategies towards Japan and China; and leading the negotiations for a dozen trade agreements.

Janow has had extensive corporate and nonprofit board experience. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.   She is an inaugural member of the international advisory council of China’s sovereign fund, the China Investment Corporation (CIC) for the past 12 years.  Early in her career, Janow was a corporate lawyer specializing in cross-border mergers and acquisitions with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York. She grew up in Tokyo, Japan, and is fluent in Japanese. She has a JD from Columbia Law School where she was a Stone Scholar and a BA in Asian Studies from the University of Michigan.

Julapa Jagtiani, Senior Economic Advisor and Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Julapa is Senior Economic Advisor and Economist at the FRB Philadelphia, a Central Bank Research Fellow at the BIS, and a Fellow member of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. At the Federal Reserve, Julapa has conducted research and participated in several supervisory policy and implementation projects, including Basel capital requirements for banks, CCAR bank stress testing, and more recently Fintech innovations and regulatory policies. She is a member of the Risk Council Fintech subgroup. Julapa has published influential research articles in top finance journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics; Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking; Journal of Banking and Finance; and  Journal of Financial Stability. Her recent research has focused on issues related to Fintech innovations, the roles of alternative data and AI/ML, small business and consumer credit access. Jagtiani has a PhD in Finance and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, where she held the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship.

Robert Bartlett, I. Michael Heyman Professor of Law, Faculty Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law and Business

Robert Bartlett is the I. Michael Heyman Professor of Law & Faculty Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business. Bartlett is also a founder and program co-director of Startup@BerkeleyLaw—UC Berkeley’s primary platform for training entrepreneurs and investors on legal, financial and operational issues confronting venture-backed startup companies. Prior to his academic career, Bartlett worked as a corporate associate for Gunderson Dettmer, a leading law firm focused on startup and venture capital finance transactions. 

Professor Bartlett has written widely in the area of law and finance, with a particular emphasis on venture capital finance, market structure, and securities regulation. Bartlett is also the academic representative for the General Counsel Advisory Board of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Model Document Working Group, which is responsible for drafting and maintaining the NVCA's model documents for venture capital financing transactions. At Berkeley, Bartlett teaches Corporate Finance, Securities Regulation, and Venture Capital Finance. 

Bartlett earned both his B.A. and J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard.  While attending Harvard Law School, Bartlett served as a notes editor of the Harvard Law Review. 

Bartlett’s academic papers can be accessed at http://papers.ssrn.com/author=363066.

Filippo de Marco, Assistant Professor of Finance, Bocconi University

Filippo De Marco is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Bocconi University. His research interests are financial intermediation and corporate finance and his papers have been published in finance academic journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Filippo earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Boston College in 2015 and has a MSc and B.A. in Economics from the University of Bologna and Padova, respectively.

Philip Strahan, John L. Collins, S.J. Chair in Finance, Boston College Caroll School of Management

Philip E. Strahan holds the John L. Collins, S.J. Chair in Finance at the Carroll School of Management, Boston College.  He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  Previously, Professor Strahan spent seven years in the Research and Market Analysis Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1993.  Professor Strahan’s research interests include the structure, efficiency and risk management practices of the financial services industry.  He has articles published in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies, among others. 

Paul Calem, Senior Vice President for Research, Bank Policy Institute

Paul Calem is a senior vice president for research at the Bank Policy Institute. At BPI, Dr. Calem focuses on current policy and regulatory issues related to consumer credit, while also engaging in longer-term research on consumer and mortgage credit. He joined BPI from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where he was a Vice President in the Supervision, Regulation and Credit Department. While at the Philadelphia Fed, he managed a unit that provided policy analysis and research on retail credit risk issues, along with the provision of quantitative support for bank examinations. The unit he managed also developed the original, CCAR/DFAST stress test models for core retail portfolios. He has also served as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board, a Director at Freddie Mac, and Vice President for Product Research at the mortgage data and analytics company Loan Performance. Dr. Calem has published extensively in peer-reviewed economics journals on household finance and on banking regulation. He holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in economics from Brown University and a bachelor’s in mathematics from Duke University.

Patricia C. Mosser, Director of the MPA Program in Economic Policy Management, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

Patricia C. Mosser is Director of the MPA Program in Economic Policy Management at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and leads the school’s Initiative on Central Banking and Financial Policy.  Previously, she was head of Research and Analysis at the Office of Financial Research, U.S. Treasury.  Mosser spent over 20 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where she was senior manager at the New York Fed’s open market desk overseeing financial market analysis, monetary policy implementation, crisis-related facilities, foreign exchange and investment operations, and analysis of financial stability. In 2009, she was SOMA manager for the FOMC.  She previously served as an economist and manager in the New York Fed Research Department and as an assistant professor in the Economics Department at Columbia.  Mosser has written on financial stability and monetary policy topics including financial reform, crisis policy tools, cyber risks to financial stability, and the monetary transmission mechanism. She received a BA from Wellesley College, an MSc with distinction from the LSE, and a PhD from MIT.

Sascha Steffen, Professor of Finance, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management

Sascha Steffen is Professor of Finance at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. He focuses on topics such as corporate debt, capital markets, financial sector risk and, more broadly, the relationship between intermediaries (banks, private equity, etc) and the real economy. Recent work e.g. analyzes global corporate debt market, the increase in non-bank vis-a-vis bank lending and the implications for the economy (risks and opportunities). In other work, Sascha investigates the effect of misallocation of capital by banks on competition within industries, the innovative activity of firms and the consequences for (long-term) economic growth. His research has been published in leading finance journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies and has received several Best Paper Awards. His research has been supported by the ECB, FDIC, the German Science Foundation as well as other national and international agencies. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and corporate events as well as meetings organized by central banks, governments, and international organizations, including the Deutsche Bundesbank, ECB, the European Parliament, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the IMF and FDIC.

Camelia Minoui, Principal Economist, Monetary Affairs, Federal Reserve Board

Camelia Minoiu is a Principal Economist in the Banking Section of the Monetary Affairs Division at the Federal Reserve Board. Previously she worked at the International Monetary Fund in the Research Department, the IMF Institute, and the African Department. During 2016-2018 she was a visiting scholar at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and the Management Department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Camelia’s research interests are in the areas of monetary policy, financial intermediation, and bank regulations for financial stability. Her research studies the impact of monetary and macroprudential policies on bank credit supply and the real economy. Her papers have been published in leading journals including the Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Development Economics. Camelia holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University and a Master’s in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics.

Olivier Darmouni, Associate Professor, Columbia Business School

Olivier Darmouni is Associate Professor at Columbia University. His research spans corporate finance, banking and monetary economics. He applies a variety of empirical methods to understand how frictions affect credit markets and monetary policy. He graduated from a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

Michael C. Ankrom, Head of Enterprise Credit and Gobal Banking Risk, Bank of America

Mick Ankrom is head of Enterprise Credit and Global Banking Risk at Bank of America. He is responsible for leading the credit risk management function for Bank of America and is the Chief Risk Officer for the Global Banking businesses. Mick works with the Bank of America Board and Management Committee to manage credit risk across the company. His Global Banking Risk team provides independent risk oversight for the company's Global Banking businesses across all risk types. Previously, Mick served as the Corporate Operational Risk executive responsible for developing and implementing the company’s Operational Risk Framework, with an emphasis on designing and implementing strong internal controls to identify, measure, monitor and control risks across the company. He previously served as the risk executive for Global Wealth and Investment Management at the bank. He joined the bank in 1996 as vice president and relationship manager for Middle Market Banking in Albany, New York. Before joining Bank of America, he served in various commercial banking and real estate lending positions at Chase Manhattan Bank. Mick is from Rifton, New York, and graduated from Siena College in Loudonville, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in finance.

William Nelson, Executive Vice President and Chief Economist, Bank Policy Institute

Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University

William Nelson is an Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Bank Policy Institute and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Previously he served as Executive Managing Director, Chief Economist, and Head of Research at the Clearing House Association and Chief Economist of the Clearing House Payments Company. Mr. Nelson contributed to and oversaw research and analysis to support the advocacy of the Association on behalf of TCH’s owner banks.

Prior to joining The Clearing House in 2016, Mr. Nelson was a deputy director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board where his responsibilities included monetary policy analysis, discount window policy analysis, and financial institution supervision. Mr. Nelson attended Federal Open Market Committee meetings and regularly briefed the Board and FOMC. He was a member of the Large Institution Supervision Coordinating Committee (LISCC) and the steering committee of the Comprehensive Liquidity Analysis and Review (CLAR). He has chaired and participated in several BIS working groups on the design of liquidity regulations and most recently chaired the CGFS-Markets Committee working group on regulatory change and monetary policy. Mr. Nelson joined the Board in 1993 as an economist in the Banking section of Monetary Affairs. In 2004, he was the founding chief of the new Monetary and Financial Stability section of Monetary Affairs. In 2007 and 2008, he visited the Bank for International Settlements, in Basel, Switzerland, where his responsibilities included analyzing central banks’ responses to the financial crisis and researching the use of forward guidance by central banks. He returned to the Board in the fall of 2008 where he helped design and manage several of the Federal Reserve’s emergency liquidity facilities.

Mr. Nelson earned a Ph.D., an M.S., and an M.A. in economics from Yale University and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. He has published research on a wide range of topics including monetary policy rules; monetary policy communications; and the intersection of monetary policy, lender of last resort policy, financial stability, and bank supervision and regulation.

Diana Iercosan, Principal Economist, Federal Reserve Board

Diana Iercosan is a Principal Economist at the Federal Reserve Board. She received a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland College Park in 2011. The same year she started working at the Federal Reserve Board, where she has focused on banking policy and supervision in the areas of market and counterparty credit risk. She was a member of several BCBS and FSB policy groups focusing on designing and benchmarking capital rules for trading book activities, LIBOR transition, and debt overhang.

Tommaso Oliviero, Senior Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Naples Fed

Tommaso Oliviero is senior assistant professor of economics at the university of Naples Federico II. In 2014 he obtained the PhD in economics at the European University Institute (Florence). He has spent visiting periods at the Wharton Business school (Philadelphia) and the Cass Business school (London). From 2013 to 2016 he was Unicredit Foscolo Europe Research Fellow at CSEF (Naples). He has recently been awarded research fellowships at BIS (Basel) and at INPS (Rome). His research interests are in empirical banking, financial regulation and applied microeconomics. In 2020 his papers have been published in the Journal of International Money and Finance, the Review of Corporate Finance Studies and the European Economic Review.

Til Schuermann, Partner, Risk & Public Policy, Oliver Wyman

Til Schuermann advises private and public sector clients on stress testing, capital planning, enterprise-wide risk management, climate risk and governance including board effectiveness. He previously served as Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) where he held numerous positions, including head of Financial Intermediation in Research and head of Credit Risk in Bank Supervision. Til started his career at Bell Labs. He is a member of the FRBNY’s Financial Advisory Roundtable, serves on the boards of Corridor Platforms (a fintech) and the Social Science Research Council, is on the advisory boards of the NYU Courant Institute Mathematical Finance program and NYU Stern’s Volatility Risk Institute, is on the FRM exam committee for GARP, an associate editor of the Journal of Financial Services Research and the Journal of Risk and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions. Til has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Metrick, Janet L. Yellen Professor of Finance and Management,Yale School of Management

Andrew Metrick is the Janet L. Yellen Professor of Finance and  Management at the Yale School of Management (SOM) and the  Director of the Yale Program on Financial Stability. He earned a  Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1994, and a B.A. in  economics and mathematics from Yale in 1989. Prior to joining  the Yale faculty in 2008, he held positions in the finance  department at Wharton and the economics department at  Harvard. In academic year 2009-10, he was on leave at the  Council of Economic Advisers in Washington. Upon returning to  Yale, he served as the Deputy Dean of SOM from 2010 to 2016. Professor Metrick’s current research and teaching is focused on  financial stability, including the regulation of systemic risk, the  activities of complex financial institutions, and the causes and  consequences of the financial crisis of 2007-9. His past work  has been in financial intermediation more generally, with a focus  on investment management and corporate governance.

Francisco Covas, Executive Vice President, Head of Research, Bank Policy Institute

Francisco Covas is currently an Executive Vice President, Head of Research at the Bank Policy Institute. Prior to joining BPI, Mr. Covas served as Senior Vice President and Deputy Head of Research at the Clearing House Association, where he helped oversee research and analysis to support the advocacy of the Association on behalf of the owner banks.

Prior to joining the Clearing House in 2016, Mr. Covas was an assistant director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board where he supervised a team focused on the effects of changes in bank regulation on monetary policy, on the role of banks in the transmission of monetary policy, and on the development and validation of stress testing models. Prior to that, he was an economist in the Division of Banking Supervision & Regulation and focused on a range of capital, liquidity and other regulatory initiatives.

Mr. Covas earned a Ph.D. in economics from University of California, San Diego in 2004 and a B.A. from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal in 1997. He has written extensively on liquidity rules, capital regulation and stress testing and has published research on a wide range of journals, including American Economic Review, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, International Journal of Forecasting, among other academic journals.