Dan Schulman: Future of retail banking

Dan Schulman joined American Express as group president, Enterprise Growth, in August 2010. Dan is responsible for the company’s global strategy to expand alternative mobile and online payment services, form new partnerships and build revenue streams beyond the traditional card and travel businesses. This includes the Serve digital payments and commerce platform, the prepaid business, Global Payment Options, Fee-Based Services, and the company’s Mergers and Acquisitions unit.

William Jack: Mobile Banking

William Jack is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at Georgetown University, where he is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is co-founder and co-director of gui2de, the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation, which conducts empirical field-based research to assess the impact and effectiveness of interventions and policies aimed at empowering individuals in developing countries to improve their lives. Major research themes include governance and accountability, the promotion of agency in the delivery of health, education, and other public services, the role of mobile technology in development, and financial development and integration.

Lisa J. Servon : Urban Banking

Lisa J. Servon is Professor and former dean at Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy. Professor Servon holds a B.A in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College, an M.A in History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of urban poverty, community development, economic development, and issues of gender and race. Specific areas of expertise include the financial lives of low-income communities, microenterprise development, and capacity-building for community-based organizations.

Jonathan Zinman: Innovating with Liability Mangement

Jonathan Zinman is a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, and co-founder and Scientific Director of the U.S. Household Finance Initiative (USHFI) of Innovations for Poverty Action. He also serves on the inaugural Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and as a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He is a member of the Behavioral Finance Forum and the Sage/Sloan Foundations Working Group on Behavioral Economics and Consumer Finance. He works directly with institutions to develop and test innovations – in pricing, product development, marketing, risk assessment, risk management, and client communication – that are beneficial to both institutions and their clients.

JUDITH RODIN: WHY RESILIENCE

Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, explores how resiliency can empower even the most destitute and vulnerable communities. “When the World Bank was planning to invest $100 million dollars in upgrading the slums in Nairobi, these slum-dweller leaders were represented at the table.”

Steve Lansing: Bali’s water temples

Steve Lansing, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, discusses the Byzantine system for the distribution of water from a volcanic lake in Bali to over two hundred farming villages. It’s worked since the 12th century, it’s egalitarian and it’s still-sustainable. “It’s one of the few functioning, ancient democratic institutions that we know about. It’s kind of beautiful.”