Research Fellows

Ruchir Agarwal is an economist at the IMF, where he has worked in several advanced economies, emerging markets, and frontier economies. Most recently, he facilitated the multilateral response to COVID-19 as the Head of the IMF Global Health and Pandemic Response Task Force. He was also the head of delegation to the G20 Joint Finance & Health Task Force. Prior to that he was the lead economist for India during COVID-19; the lead economist for Mongolia’s economic reform program during its 2017-18 crisis; as well as the lead economist for Sweden, Lebanon, and Bhutan. He also served in the financial crisis management division, where he worked on the implementation of the Cyprus rescue package during the European debt crisis, and on financial sector reforms in several crisis cases. His research on electronic money, negative interest rate policy, finance & trade solutions to fight the pandemic, and the role of talent in advancing innovation and long-run growth has been cited by the Financial Times, WSJ, New York Times, The Economist, Washington Post, etc. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 2012—where he also won the Allyn A. Young Prize for excellence in teaching. As a Research Fellow at M-RCBG he will focus on “Financing Global Goods.” The project will explore ways to increase strategic investments in global goods (such as pandemic prevention, frontier science, and climate security) that benefit every nation. His project is sponsored by Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government.

Marlene Amstad is economics and finance professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, the Co-Director of its Fintech Center at the Shenzhen Finance Institute and serves as Vice-Chair of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). As the former deputy director at the Swiss National Bank she headed the investment strategy and financial market analysis unit.  Marlene also worked at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Credit Suisse and the Swiss Economic Institute. She served as adviser to over ten Asian central banks and coordinated the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) initiative of EMEAP (Executives' Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks). Marlene regularly holds research fellowships at central banks, most recently with the Bank of Japan, Bank of Finland and BIS and is a fellow at ABFER (Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research). Marlene’s research focuses on international finance and monetary economics. Her research is published in refereed and policy-oriented journals. She is the coeditor of “Central Bank Digital Currency and Fintech in Asia” with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) covering contributions by eight Asian central banks, IMF, BIS and Luohan Academy. Her latest book is “The Handbook of China’s Financial System” including banking, bonds, the stock market, asset management, the pension system, and financial technology (forthcoming Nov 2020, in Princeton Press).  Marlene is an expert in developing new economic indicators based on big data for policy makers and investors. Working at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, she created the “Fed New York staff underlying inflation gauge (UIG)” which is published monthly. She built a quantitative credit rating system for corporate clients at Credit Suisse, and at Swiss Economic Institute a recession indicator based on company surveys. As a Senior Fellow at M-RCBG, her research was on data innovation and financial regulation. Her faculty sponsor was Ken Rogoff, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. E-mail: marleneamstad@hks.harvard.edu

Ed Balls was UK Shadow Chancellor from 2011 to 2015 and co-chaired the Inclusive Prosperity Commission with former US Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, which reported in January 2015. He served in the British Cabinet as Education Secretary (2007-2010). He was previously the UK Minister for Financial Services (2006-2007) and the Chief Economic Adviser to the UK Treasury (1997-2004), during which time he was the Chair of the IMFC Deputies and UK G20 Deputy. He was the Labour & Co-operative Member of Parliament for Morley and Outwood (2010-2015) and MP for Normanton (2005-2010). As Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury (1997-2004), Balls led the design of policies including independence of the Bank of England, the New Deal jobs programme, the Five Tests Euro assessment, Sure Start, tax credits and the national minimum wage. As a Treasury Minister, he was commissioned by the G7 Finance Ministers to prepare a report with Sir Jon Cunliffe (now deputy Governor of the Bank of England) on Economic Aspects of the Israel-Palestine conflict. At the Department for Children, Schools and Families, Balls brought together schools and children's policy for the first time in the Children's Plan and pushed through radical and progressive policies including raising the education and training age to 18, reform of the social work profession, establishing the support staff negotiating body and extra investment in youth services and short breaks for disabled children and their families. As Shadow Chancellor, he was awarded the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year and the Political Studies Association Politician of the Year. Balls received his MPA from HKS in 1990, was a teaching fellow in Harvard’s Department of Economics (1989-90), and was a leader writer and columnist at the Financial Times (1990-94) where he was the WINCOTT Young Financial Journalist of the Year. He has also written regularly for the Guardian, New Statesman and Tribune and co-authored a number of books, papers, articles and pamphlets. His faculty sponsor is Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor of Harvard University and Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Email: ed_balls@hks.harvard.edu

Camilla Cavendish is an award-winning journalist and commentator who sits as an independent peer, Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice, in the UK House of Lords. She is the author of Extra Time: Ten Lessons for an Ageing World, published by Harper Collins May 2019. She was a senior advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, as Head of the Policy Unit in Number Ten Downing Street. She received her MA from Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and her MPA from the Kennedy School, where she was a Kennedy Memorial Trust Scholar. She has expertise on a wide-range of policy issues, including healthcare. She was the author of the Cavendish Review, An Independent Review into Healthcare Assistants and Support Workers in the NHS and social care settings, commissioned by the UK Government in 2013. She has been a Non-Executive Director of the Care Quality Commission, the UK’s hospital and care home regulator. She is best known as the author of the UK government’s “sugar tax” on sugary drinks, announced in 2016 to counter obesity, and for her work on child protection. As Assistant Editor and OpEd columnist for The Times newspaper, her campaign to expose miscarriages of justice in family courts convinced the Brown government to legislate, to open those courts to the media. She is the recipient of the Paul Foot/Private Eye award for investigative journalism; Campaigning Journalist of the Year and Wincott Senior Financial Journalist.  She is published regularly in The Sunday Times and The Financial Times, appears regularly on BBC and ITV television, and has presented programmes for BBC Radio 4 on topics including the age divide and air pollution. She is chair of Frontline, a pioneering non-profit which recruits and trains high performing graduates to be social workers. She started her career at McKinsey & Co and went on to be CEO of a public-private joint venture which regenerated London’s south bank area. Her current research is entitled: The coming demographic challenge, the emergence of the “Super Old”, and the need for new conceptual frameworks. Her faculty sponsor is Jeff Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy. Email: camilla_cavendish@hks.harvard.edu

Dipayan Ghosh, Ph.D. is the co-director of the Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and research fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, and lecturer at Harvard Law School. He is the author of Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design. His research and writing on digital privacy, artificial intelligence, disinformation, and internet economics has been cited and published widely, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR and BBC. A computer scientist by training, Ghosh previously worked at Facebook, where he led strategic efforts to address privacy and security issues. Prior, he was a technology and economic policy advisor at the White House during the Obama administration. Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30, he received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering & computer science from Cornell University and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley. Email: dipayan_ghosh@hks.harvard.edu

Robert Greenstein, founder of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and its president from 1981 through 2020, is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he is part of Brookings’ Economic Studies team and is affiliated with The Hamilton Project.  He has written extensively and advised U.S. policymakers on federal budget issues, poverty and inequality, an array of social programs, and aspects of tax and health policy.  Prior to founding CBPP, Greenstein served under President Carter as Administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he directed the agency responsible for the federal anti-hunger programs and helped design the landmark Food Stamp Act of 1977, often considered the most significant anti-poverty advance of the Carter years.  President Clinton appointed him in 1994 to serve on the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, and in 2008, he headed the federal budget policy component of the transition team for President Obama.  He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1996; in 2002, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and in 2010, he received the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science, which cited him as a “champion of evidence-based policy whose work at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is respected on both sides of the aisle.”  He also received the Heinz Award for Public Policy in 2008 for his work to “improve the economic outlook of many of America’s poorer citizens.”  Vox examined his career and impact in a recent (Nov. 2022) profile, “How one man quietly stitched the American safety net over four decades” (https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23383703/robert-greenstein-center-budget-policy-priorities), while The New Republic listed him in 2011 as one of Washington’s 25 “most powerful, least famous people.”  A graduate of Harvard College, he has honorary doctorates from Tufts University, Occidental College, and Haverford College. Email: rgreenstein@hks.harvard.edu

Jane S. Hoffman is a former New York public official and author. Her latest book “Your Data, Their Billions-Unraveling and Simplifying Big Tech” was chosen as a top ten non-fiction book by Amazon and an “Editor’s Choice.”  The book outlines the datafication of our lives and the digital marketplace. She has served as Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. Hoffman was a Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor and also served as Commissioner of Public Authority Reform in New York. She founded and chaired the Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy, a non-profit that created the first-ever national presidential debate on energy security and climate. Her first book “Green-Your Place in the New Energy Revolution” detailed a renewable energy plan for the United States and was excerpted in Scientific American. She previously served as Deputy Commissioner to the United Nations, Consular Corps and International Business where she conducted an nationally awarded economic impact study. She was President of the Sister City Program, a nine country cultural exchange. Hoffman has served on more than ten boards and commissions including Northwestern University from which she holds a B.S. She previously served as an Advanced Leadership Fellow and Senior Fellow at Harvard University. As an M-RCBG Research Fellow she will focus on corporate social responsibility. Her faculty sponsor is John Haigh, Co-Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Email: jane_hoffman@harvard.edu

Rt Hon Jo Johnson is a President’s Professorial Fellow at King’s College London. He is also Chairman of FutureLearn, the global digital learning platform, and of Access Creative College, the largest independent provider of skills, education and training for the creative industries. A Member of the UK Parliament between 2010-2019, Jo served as a senior Government Minister under three successive Prime Ministers, including as Head of the No10 Downing Street Policy Unit and Minister of State in the Cabinet Office; Minister of State for Transport; Minister for London; and Minister of State, attending Cabinet, for Universities, Science & Innovation. He introduced the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, a major piece of legislation which created a new regulator, the Office for Students, and established a mechanism (the Teaching Excellence Framework) to make universities more accountable for teaching quality and student outcomes. The Act also created a national strategic research agency, UK Research and Innovation. Before entering Parliament, he was an award-winning journalist at the Financial Times, where over 13 years he reported from over 20 countries in various senior roles, including Contributing Editor, Associate Editor, Head of the Lex Column, South Asia Bureau Chief and Paris Correspondent. Co-author of The Man who Tried to Buy the World (Penguin, 2003) and co-editor of Reconnecting Britain and India: Ideas for an Enhanced Partnership (Academic Foundation, 2011), he has a first class degree from Oxford University in Modern History and an MBA from INSEAD. He is a member of the Privy Council; a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation; a Fellow of Birkbeck College, University of London; and a Council Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Guardian journalist and author Amelia Gentleman. They live in London and have two children. His faculty sponsor is Jason Furman, Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.  As a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, Jo will pursue his research project on “Global Britain”.  His email is: jojohnson@hks.harvard.edu

Jean-Pierre Landau is an Associate Professor of Economics at SciencesPo - Paris and a former senior official at the French Treasury and Central Bank. He has served as Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, Executive Director for France at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (Washington, DC), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (London). He was also Undersecretary at the Minister of Finance in Paris. In his different capacities, he was a member of the Board of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, a G7 and G20 Deputy, and a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB)  and its Steering Committee.  He was Visiting Professor at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School (Princeton University). He co-authored "The Euro and the Battle of Ideas" with Markus Brunnermeier and Harold James, published at Princeton University Press in 2016. His main fields of interest include money and international economics, areas where he has direct and extensive experience. As a Senior Fellow, he will be conducting research on "The future of money in a digital world". Jean-Pierre was an M-RCBG Senior Fellow 2018-20. His faculty sponsor is Jeffrey Frankel, James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University's Kennedy School. Email: jean-pierre_landau@hks.harvard.edu

Philippe Le Corre is a Research Fellow with the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, focusing on China-Europe relations, Chinese overseas investments and China’s global rise. He is also a Senior Research Fellow with ESSEC-IRENE (Paris and Singapore) and a Fellow-in-residence at CY Cergy-Paris University (Advanced Studies). In addition, he is an Associate in Research with the John K. Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard and a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Asia and Europe Programs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was a M-RCBG Senior Fellow from 2017-2019 and a Visiting Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC, from 2014-2017. Philippe’s career spans government, academia, media and business. He was Special Assistant for international affairs to the French defense minister, and also served as a Senior Policy Adviser on Asia within the Ministry of defense’s directorate for international relations and strategy. In the private sector, Mr. Le Corre worked as a partner with Publicis Consultants in Paris and Shanghai, where he ran a team of advisers to the Shanghai World Expo 2010 Organizing Committee. He previously worked in Asia as a foreign correspondent for nine years, and has published extensively on the region in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, Politico, Le Monde, Les Echos and Foreign Affairs, among others. He is the author or co-author of several books including China’s Offensive in Europe (Brookings Institution Press, 2016), Quand la Chine va au marché (Maxima, 1999) and Après Hong Kong (Autrement, 1997).  His recent publications include China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Implications for Europe in China-US-Europe Relations in a New Era, Routledge, forthcoming book (2020); Covid-19 and the end of European illusions about China (Carnegie, July 2020); The Case for Transatlantic Cooperation in Indo-Pacific (Carnegie Working paper, December 2019 – with Erik Brattberg); China as a geoeconomic influencer: Four European Case Studies (Carnegie Working paper, October 2018); China’s rise: What about a transatlantic dialog? (Asia-Europe Journal, April 2017, co-authored with Jonathan Pollack) and China Abroad: The Long March to Europe (China Economic Quarterly, June 2016).  Le Corre received his MSc in Asian Studies from the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco) in Paris and his MA in political science from the Sorbonne in Paris. He was a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard and a Sachs Scholar in 2003-2004.

Eric Lesser is a senior counsel at WilmerHale, a leading global law firm. Previously, Lesser was a four-term member of the Massachusetts State Senate, an Obama White House aide, and a Democratic candidate for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor.  As a state senator in Massachusetts, Lesser chaired the Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technologies, co-authoring four major economic development packages over three legislative sessions. He led Senate negotiations for legislation authorizing more than $627 million in aid for families and small businesses in response to COVID-19, and for historic zoning reform to alleviate the housing crisis. He also co-authored and led negotiations for new laws regarding life sciences, sports wagering, intellectual property, student loans, and transportation infrastructure, in particular championing connecting western and eastern Massachusetts by passenger rail.   Lesser also held a variety of additional leadership positions in the legislature, including Chair of the Senate Committee on Ethics, co-chair of the Massachusetts Commission on the Future of Work, and co-chair of the Manufacturing Caucus, the Gateway Cities Caucus, and the Public Libraries Caucus. He was also vice chair of both the Transportation Committee and Judiciary Committee. Recognized nationally for his expertise in economic policy and transit and rail policy, he recently served on the Transition Committee for Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, focusing on transportation issues.  At the White House, Lesser was special assistant to Senior Advisor David Axelrod, one of President Obama’s closest and most trusted aides. Lesser assisted in developing and executing strategy around the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd/Frank Wall Street Reform Act, and the federal response to the Great Recession and the Global Financial Crisis. He also served as director of strategic planning for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he was the principal communications, political, and legislative adviser to Council Chair Austan Goolsbee, a key economic adviser and member of the president’s cabinet. Mr. Lesser began his career as one of the original members of Obama’s presidential campaign, traveling extensively with then-Senator Obama and his senior staff through both the primary and general elections.  Mr. Lesser is the founder of a workshop series on running for office, hosted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics and Center for Public Leadership, and a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also worked for seven seasons as a consultant to the hit HBO series VEEP.  Mr. Lesser is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a founding member of the national advisory board of the Student Borrower Protection Center. Previously, he was the recipient of a Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership at the Aspen Institute, national co-chair of the Future of Work Initiative for The NewDEAL, and an inaugural fellow of the Massachusetts Civic Action Project.

Timothy Massad is the Director of the M-RCBG Digital Assets Policy Project. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Mr. Massad served as Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2014-2017. Under his leadership, the agency implemented the Dodd-Frank reforms of the over-the-counter swaps market and harmonized many aspects of cross-border regulation, including reaching a landmark agreement with the European Union on clearinghouse oversight. The agency also declared virtual currencies to be commodities, introduced reforms to address automated trading and strengthened cybersecurity protections. Previously, Mr. Massad served as the Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the principal U.S. governmental response to the 2008 financial crisis. During his tenure, Treasury recovered more on all the crisis investments than was disbursed. Mr. Massad was with the Treasury from 2009 to 2014 and received the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Department’s highest honor, in recognition of his achievements. Prior to his government service, Mr. Massad was a partner in the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP. His practice included corporate finance, derivatives and advising boards of directors. He served primarily in New York but also managed the firm’s Hong Kong office from 1999 to 2002 and worked in its London office. Mr. Massad helped draft the original ISDA standard agreements for swaps. Mr. Massad has a B.A. from Harvard College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Mr. Massad was an M-RCBG Senior Fellow 2017-20. His faculty sponsor was Professor Jason Furman, Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard Kennedy School . His current work is focused on public policy issues pertaining to digital assets. Email: timothy_massad@hks.harvard.edu

Mr. Massad’s recent writings include the following: 

It’s Time to Strengthen the Regulation of Crypto-assets, published by The Brookings Institute, March 2019, available at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Economis-Studies-Timothy-Massad-Cryptocurrency-Paper.pdf

“Is Facebook Libra A Betrayal of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Vision?”, Fortune, July 15, 2019, available at https://fortune.com/2019/07/15/facebook-libra-coin-cryptocurrency-hearing/

"Facebook’s Libra 2.0:  Why you might like it even if we can’t trust Facebook,” June 2020, available at https://www.brookings.edu/research/facebooks-libra-2-0/

Peter Sands became the Executive Director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, headquartered in Geneva, in March 2018. A former Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered PLC, one of the world’s leading international banks, Sands has been a research fellow at Harvard University since 2015, dividing his time between the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Global Health Institute, working on a range of research projects in financial markets and regulation, fintech and global health. He was Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Bank from November 2006 to June 2015. He joined the Board of Standard Chartered PLC as Group Finance Director in May 2002, responsible for Finance, Strategy, Risk and Technology and Operations. Prior to this, Sands was Director and Senior Partner at worldwide consultants McKinsey & Co. Before joining McKinsey, he worked for the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Sands is the lead non-executive board member of the Department of Health in the United Kingdom and the co-chair of the India UK CEO Forum. He holds a number of board memberships including the World Economic Forum and Lingnan University and is Governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. He graduated from Oxford University and holds and MPA from HKS (1988), where he was a Harkness Fellow. Sands is a former senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government. As a research fellow, Sands’ research explores a variety of topics related to banks and financial markets. His faculty sponsor is Richard Zeckhauser, Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Political Economy. Email: peter_sands@hks.harvard.edu

Wake Smith is a Lecturer in Yale College, where he teaches what is understood to be the world’s first undergraduate survey course on climate engineering. The core of that course was published in book form in March 2022 by the Cambridge University Press under the title Pandora’s Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention. As a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, he has published papers on the aeronautics, costs, and deployment logistics of stratospheric aerosol injection as well as on the proper governance of research into these technologies. He finished his business career in private equity with New York based New State Capital. He previously served as: Chairman and President of Pemco World Air Services; Chief Operating Officer of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings; and President of the flight training division of Boeing. He holds a BA in History from Yale and an MBA from Harvard. E-mail: wakesmith@hks.harvard.edu

Sir Paul Tucker is a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government who writes at the intersection of political economy and political philosophy. He is the author of Unelected Power (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Global Discord (PUP, fall 2022). His other activities include being a senior fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University; president of the UK’s National Institute for Economic and Social Research; a director at Swiss Re; a member of the Board of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, and a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation. For over thirty years he was a central banker, and a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee from 2002. He was Deputy Governor from 2009 to late 2013, including serving on the Financial Policy Committee (vice chair) and Prudential Regulatory Authority Board (vice chair). Internationally, he was a member of the steering committee of the G20 Financial Stability Board, and chaired its Committee on the Resolution of Cross-Border Banks to solve “too big to fail”. He was a member of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and was chair of the Basel Committee for Payment and Settlement Systems from April 2012. After leaving central banking, he was chair of the Systemic Risk Council from December 2015 to August 2021. Email: paul_tucker@hks.harvard.edu; website: http://paultucker.me/

Rodrigo Vergara was Governor of the Central Bank of Chile between 2011 and 2016. Between 2009 and 2011 he was member of the Policy Board of the Central Bank of Chile. Mr. Vergara graduated in economics from Universidad Católica de Chile in 1985. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University (1991). Between 1985 and 1995 he worked at the Central Bank of Chile, rising to the position of Chief Economist in 1992. In 1995 he joined the Center for Public Studies—an independent Chilean think tank—where he was coordinator of the Macroeconomics Department. From 2003 until his appointment to the Bank’s Board, Mr. Vergara was full professor at the Economics Department of Universidad Católica. Mr. Vergara has been economic advisor to the central banks and governments of several countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, and has been an external consultant for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations. He has been member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Work and Equity, of the Advisory Council on the Chile-United States Free Trade Agreement, of the National Savings Commission, of the Conicyt Economics Group. He is member of the editorial board of journals Estudios Públicos and Economía Chilena. Mr. Vergara has authored numerous articles published in specialized professional journals and has edited several books. He is currently Senior Research Economist at the Center for Public Studies in Santiago and professor at the Catholic University of Chile. He is also an economic consultant and member of the board of directors of several companies. Email: rodrigo_vergara@hks.harvard.edu

Dr. Shlomit Wagman was the Director-General of the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority (IMPA), a financial regulator and law enforcement agency, from 2016 to 2022, and the Acting Director-General of the Israel Privacy Protection Authority from 2019 to 2021. She was the Head of the Israeli delegation to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing watchdog from 2016 to 2022, and also served as a Co-Chair of its operational working group, a member of the Steering Group, and was a nominee for Presidency. She led major national reforms, most recently regulating cryptocurrencies, and the historic accession of Israel to the FATF as a member country, after an evaluation process in which Israel was placed among the top three most effective countries in the world. Under her leadership, IMPA doubled its size and exposed hundreds of money laundering and terrorism financing cases, which led to the crackdown of major criminal organizations and the seizure of billions of illicit funds. IMPA further received various awards, including the Egmont’s Global Best Financial Investigation (2016, 2021) and recognition by the FATF as one of the three most effective FIUs worldwide. Dr. Wagman worked in the private sector with leading law firms, including Wachtell Lipton in NYC and Gross-Hodak in Israel. She is the co-editor of the book "Cybercrime" (NYU Press, 2007), with Prof. Jack Balkin et al. She served as an adjunct lecturer at Tel Aviv University and Raichman University (2007-2012) and was a fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School (2003-2007). She holds J.S.D. and LL.M. degrees from Yale Law School (2007, 2005) and a joint LL.B. and B.A. degree (magna cum laude) in law and business management from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001). She clerked for the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Prof. Aharon Barak.
She is a research fellow at the M-RCBG and a visiting researcher at the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard Law School. Email: swagman@law.harvard.edu

Antonio Weiss is currently a Research Fellow at M-RCBG. He served as Counselor to the Secretary at the United States Department of the Treasury, where he worked on domestic and international issues related to financial markets, regulatory reform, job creation, consumer finance, and broad-based economic growth. Since joining the Obama Administration, he served as the point-person on the debt crisis in Puerto Rico, working closely with members of Congress to pass legislation to allow an orderly restructuring of the Commonwealth’s debt. This has been called the most significant piece of economic legislation in 2016. Mr. Weiss led Treasury’s debt management team that oversees the Nation’s finances and initiated the most comprehensive review of the Treasury market in nearly two decades. Mr. Weiss advised the Secretary on the implementation of financial regulatory reform and policy issues related to financial stability, including the work of the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s review of potential threats to financial stability arising from asset management products and activities. Mr. Weiss coordinated the Department’s housing finance policy efforts and oversaw the Department’s housing programs aimed at assisting struggling homeowners, which received additional funding during his tenure at Treasury.  Mr. Weiss also led Treasury's review of developments in fintech, including the publication of a white paper on marketplace lending, which made several recommendations to enhance consumer and small business protections in this emerging sector. In recognition of his achievements at Treasury, Mr. Weiss was presented the Alexander Hamilton Award, which is the Department’s highest honor. Prior to joining Treasury, Mr. Weiss served in various leadership roles at Lazard in New York and Europe, including as Global Head of Investment Banking from 2009 to 2014. He has advised many of the world’s leading corporations on their most significant strategic decisions.  From 2000 to 2009, Mr. Weiss was based in Paris, where he was Vice Chairman of European Investment Banking and subsequently Global Head of Mergers and Acquisitions. Mr. Weiss is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Director of the Volcker Alliance and the French-American Foundation.  He was Publisher of the leading literary quarterly, The Paris Review. Mr. Weiss earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale College and M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and Loeb Fellow.  He was an M-RCBG Senior Fellow from 2017-2019. Email: antonio_weiss@hks.harvard.edu