Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a columnist for Project Syndicate.

Robert C. Merton is the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the John and Natty McArthur University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. His research focuses on finance theory, including lifecycle and retirement finance, optimal portfolio selection, capital asset pricing, pricing of derivative securities, credit risk, loan guarantees, financial innovation, the dynamics of institutional change, and improving the methods of measuring and managing macro-financial systemic risk.

Paul Romer, an economist and policy entrepreneur, is a University Professor on leave from NYU. Romer was the former Director of the Marron Institute and the founding director of the Urbanization Project at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business. The Urbanization Project conducts applied research on the many ways in which policymakers in the developing world can use the rapid growth of cities to create economic opportunity and undertake systemic social reform.

Takatoshi Ito is an internationally renowned economist and expert on international finance, macroeconomics, and the Japanese economy. He served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy from 2006 to 2008. He also held senior positions in the Japanese Ministry of Finance and at the International Monetary Fund.  Ito also served as Dean of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy for the past two years and as a professor at Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

Mr. Ville Rimali is an expert in business development, digital offering development as well as company mergers. Currently, he is responsible for business development in the energy industry in the Philippines. During the past career, he has worked in the global business development team of Wärtsilä Energy Solutions, developed microgrids around Asia Region based in Singapore and has been responsible for smart grid demonstration in local utility in Finland. He has graduated as Master of Science both in Power Systems and Economics.

Meherban Khan is the Head of Utility Companies at Agra Khan Rural Support Program in northern Pakistan. He has more than 17 years of experience in the development sector and is skilled in project and program planning, implementation, management, financial budgeting, and community-based enterprises development. He has a master’s in Economics and master’s in finance from the University of Peshawar and also has a post-graduate diploma in Project Management from Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands.