Michael B. Greenwald, Former US Treasury Senior Official, US Department of The Treasury; Adjunct Professor, Columbia University
Michael B. Greenwald is a thought leader on the future of money and fintech innovation as well as a former U.S. financial diplomat, professor, and author with over 15 years of experience in finance, corporate and family office strategy, public policy, intelligence, and diplomacy. Michael is a senior executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS) serving as its Global Lead for Digital Assets. He leads U.S. and global strategy for Amazon on integrating cloud systems into public sector institutions and government agencies to manage Central Bank Digital Currencies, digital assets, blockchain technology, and NFTs. He leads an AWS Digital Asset and Future of Money Task Force composed of the leaders in the digital currency space including Circle, CoinBase, Chainalysis, TRM Labs, and Elliptic to provide thought leadership and education for the highest levels of the U.S. Government, law enforcement, regulators, and private industry.
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Michael has served at the highest levels of the U.S. Government: he spent almost a decade of his life in the public sector working for the United States Treasury Department culminating with his position as America’s first and most senior Treasury diplomat to Qatar and Kuwait. In this role he acted as principal liaison to each nation’s banking sectors, finance ministries, and sovereign wealth funds while serving under two presidential administrations and three treasury secretaries. Prior, he held senior policy, legal, counterterrorism and intelligence roles requiring travel to over 20 countries including North Africa, Europe, Asia and was on the Treasury/State Department team that visited Ukraine in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea to craft sanctions against Russia. He has written for the Presidents Daily Brief and was part of the Treasury teams that crafted sanctions against Iran, North Korea, Libya, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda.
After departing Treasury, he used overseas experiences and knowledge of international and monetary policy to help lead the domestic and international growth of a global multi-family office Tiedemann Advisors. Michael helped oversee the firm’s growth from $12 billion in assets to over $30 billion. He was also named the firm’s first Director for Digital Asset Education providing education to families and strategy to the firm’s investment team on issues related to blockchain technology.
Michael is currently an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) leading a digital asset capstone program, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Geoeconomics Center and senior advisor to its President and CEO Fred Kempe, and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security. Michael is Deputy Director at the Trilateral Commission leading the David Rockefeller Fellows Program, member of the Bretton Woods Committee, and member of the Wilson Center Digital Assets Taskforce. He previously served as an Adjunct Professor at Boston University Pardee School of International Relations teaching its first course on counter-terrorist financing and the new emerging economy in the Middle East.
As a former fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, he published over 50 articles at Harvard on the U.S. dollar, geopolitics, the contemporary art market, and the future of money. He has also been featured in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron’s, Financial Times, Associated Press, and on CNBC.
His philanthropic work has included chairing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Next Generation Board, serving as the Vice Chairman of the board for the Promise Fund of Florida with U.S. Ambassador Nancy Brinker, and, in conjunction with Palm Beach Synagogue, helping launch an annual event in Palm Beach on countering antisemitism. He previously served on the Board of Susan G. Komen, was a senior advisor to Dana Farber President and CEO Dr. Laurie Glimcher, and was member of Boston University School of Law Dean’s Advisory Board.
He holds a Juris Doctor from Boston University, a Master’s from Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from George Washington University. Raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, he now lives in Palm Beach, Florida with his wife. He served on the Board of The Town of Palm Beach Investment Committee and was honored by Palm Beach Illustrated as one of the city’s 100 most influential business leaders.
Prasad Joshi, Senior Vice President, Center for Emerging Technology Solutions (iCETS), Infosys.
Prasad Joshi leads Infosys Center for Emerging Technology Solutions (iCETS). iCETS is the key unit within Infosys, responsible for building expertise in emerging technologies and contextualizing them to create business solutions for Infosys clients. Prasad has been instrumental in building the strategic ‘Living Labs’ program at iCETS, and through it has setup co-creation labs with key clients.
His portfolio focus includes AI and Cognitive Solutions, Blockchain, Design and Experience, AR-VR, and Cyber Security and Data Management. Under Prasad’s leadership iCETS has created products for Live Enterprise Application Management (LEAP), Cyber Security (Cyber Next), Digital Customer Service (Infosys Cortex), Conversational Interfaces, data privacy, enterprise gamification, and location based solutions among other areas. As part of global charter, he leads the creation of startup ecosystems and academia relationships.
Amanda Licastro, Emerging & Digital Literacy Instructional Designer, Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Amanda Licastro is responsible for providing instructional design support around emerging technology and digital literacies. She works closely with staff in WIC, the Education Commons, Vitale Digital Media Lab and Hechtman Recording Studio in collaboration with other Library units and campus partners to ensure success of the critical literacies initiative.
Amanda was formerly the Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric at Stevenson University in Maryland. Her research explores the intersection of technology and writing, including book history, dystopian literature, and digital humanities, with a focus on multimodal composition and Extended Reality. Amanda serves as the Director of Pedagogical Initiatives of the Book Traces project and is co-founder of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy and the Writing Studies Tree. Publications include articles in Kairos, Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities, Hybrid Pedagogy, and Communication Design Quarterly, as well as chapters in Digital Reading and Writing in Composition Studies, and Critical Digital Pedagogy. Her co-edited collection, Composition and Big Data, is in production from University of Pittsburgh Press. The grant-funded project on Virtual Reality Amanda developed and executed was awarded the Paul Fortier Prize at the 2017 Digital Humanities conference, and has been featured in the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Magazine.
John Paul MacDuffie, Director, Mack Institute Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation; Professor of Management, The Wharton School
John Paul MacDuffie is Professor of Management at the Wharton School and Director of the Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation (PVMI) at Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management. PVMI carries on the work of the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP), the research network founded at M.I.T. to study the challenges facing the global automotive industry, which Professor MacDuffie co-directed from 2001-2012. He received his B.A. degree from Harvard University and his PhD degree from the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. His global research on the determinants of high-performance manufacturing is featured centrally in the books The Machine That Changed the World and After Lean Production: Evolving Employment Practices in the World Auto Industry. He is a founding board member of the Industry Studies Association and a member of the Automotive Experts Group at the Federal Reserve Bank.
Ethan Mollick, Academic Director, Wharton Interactive; Professor of Management, The Wharton School
Ethan Mollick is an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. He is also author of The Unicorn’s Shadow: Combating the Dangerous Myths that Hold Back Startups, Founders, and Investors. His papers have been published in top management journals and have won multiple awards. His work on crowdfunding is the most cited article in management published in the last seven years.
Prior to his time in academia, Ethan cofounded a startup company, and he currently advises a number of startups and organizations. As the Academic Director and cofounder of Wharton Interactive, he works to transform entrepreneurship education using games and simulations. He has long had interest in using games for teaching, and he coauthored a book on the intersection between video games and business that was named one of the American Library Association’s top 10 business books of the year. He has built numerous teaching games, which are used by tens of thousands of students around the world.
Mollick received his PhD and MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, magna cum laude.
Yaad Oren, Head of SAP Innovation Center Network
Yaad Oren joined SAP in 2005 and is heading SAP Innovation Center Network, a global R&D organization aiming to address enterprise customers future needs by exploring emerging technologies and building early-stage products. In his previous role, Yaad was the Head of SAP Technology & Innovation Strategy where he helped defining SAP’s technology direction and drove strategic technology-focused initiatives around M&A and partnerships. Previously to that, Yaad spent ten years at SAP in different product groups in development and product management leadership roles. Yaad also conducted research and represented SAP in technical standardization committees in domains such as development tools, integration and workflows.
Previously to SAP, Yaad spent four years in an elite cyber technologies’ unit in the military; and held several IT and technical advisor roles for businesses and startups.
Kirthika Parmeswaran, Founder & CEO, Vital Start Health
Kirthika is the Founder & CEO of Vital Start Health, a University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Innovation early-stage startup developing the first clinically guided, personalized, equitable maternity mental health platform using Virtual Reality and AI. She has extensive experience across business and technology in healthcare, telecommunications, and cybersecurity. She has won numerous awards and honors, is a DARPA award recipient and a strategic thought leader with an R&D background. Kirthika has a Master’s in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis and an Executive Master’s in Technology Management from University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Wharton School of Business. She loves to read, sing, play with her dog and volunteer for wellness initiatives in the community.
Harbir Singh, Co-director, Mack Institute; Mack Professor of Management, The Wharton School; Faculty Director, Huntsman Program
Harbir Singh is committed to global business research and education, and he has served as vice dean for Global Initiatives at the Wharton School. He focuses on the development of world-class capabilities and of sustainable competitive advantage. His main interests in research and teaching lie in three areas: strategic leadership, growth and innovation via alliances and acquisitions, and the evolution of competitive strategy.
Harbir has won multiple awards for outstanding research in strategic management at the Academy of Management in addition to awards for teaching. He received the Academy of International Business Decade Award for his co-authored work on determinants of modes of entry by multinational firms into new country markets. He was chair of the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management and is the former dean of the fellows of the Strategic Management Society. He is the author of several books on strategy and leadership in a global setting.
Harbir received his PhD at the University of Michigan. He is the academic director for several of Wharton’s open enrollment executive programs, including Creating and Implementing Strategy for Competitive Advantage and Driving Growth through Strategic Partnerships, and is a lead faculty member in the Mergers and Acquisitions program. Additionally, he teaches and directs numerous customized programs for companies and associations around the world.
Harbir has been a visiting faculty member at London Business School; Bocconi University in Milan; and the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, as well as a founding faculty member of the Indian School of Business. He has also conducted executive seminars on competitive advantage, globalization, acquisitions, and alliances for many companies including IBM Corporation, Pfizer, Verizon, AT&T, and Daimler.
David B. Treat, Senior Managing Director, Accenture
Dave Treat is a Senior Managing Director, leading Accenture’s Metaverse Continuum Business Group which includes its Blockchain and Multi-Party Systems business which he formed in 2015 and its Extended Reality business. He is also the Global Technology Lead for Capital Markets and has nearly 25 years of experience in Financial Services. Dave serves on the Board of Directors on Hyperledger (Board Chair) —a Linux Project, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Global Blockchain Business Council (Board Chair), Interwork Alliance, Linux FINOS, and the ID2020 Alliance. Dave is a member of the World Economic Forum C4IR Global Blockchain Council, Digital Currency Governance Consortia, and Project Advisor for the World Economic Forum’s Digital Identity Initiative and the Known Traveler Digital Identity project. He is a program advisor for the Chamber of Digital Commerce, and co-Chairs the New York Fintech Innovation Lab. Dave holds over 110 patents and pending patents and was named one of the Sci-Tech 100 2018: The Architects of the Future by Silicon Republic.
Kevin Werbach, Liem Sioe Liong/First Pacific Company Professor and Chair, Legal Studies and Business Ethics, The Wharton School
A professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and formerly Counsel for New Technology Policy at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Werbach has spent the past two decades exploring major trends at the intersection of the Internet, digital media, and communications. He served on the Obama Administration’s Presidential Transition Team and founded the Supernova Group, a technology consulting firm, which organized the CEO-level Supernova technology conference. He also created one of the most successful massive open online courses, with nearly half a million enrollments. He was named Wharton’s first-ever Iron Prof in 2010.
Valery Yakubovich, Executive Director, Mack Institute for Innovation Management
Dr. Valery Yakubovich is the Mack Institute’s Executive Director. Previously, he served as the founding Executive Director of Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab, where he oversaw the development of an innovative IT, data, and institutional infrastructure for large-scale open collaborative social sciences. He has diverse academic experience ranging from leading a national summer work program for university students in the former Soviet Union to conducting research, teaching, consulting, and fundraising at major academic and corporate institutions in the US and Europe. Dr. Yakubovich was on the Management Faculty of the Wharton School for several years, as well as the ESSEC Business School, where he was a full Professor of Management.
Dr. Yakubovich holds an MS in mathematics from Moscow State University, an MA in sociology from the University of Warwick, and a PhD in sociology from Stanford University. His research on organizational innovations and social networks has appeared in top academic and practitioner journals, including American Sociological Review, Human Relations, Organization Science, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, and been featured in mass media, including the Financial Times and the New York Times.