Nicole is the CEO of First Access, a software platform that allows lenders to digitize loan origination and analysis. Lenders have saved borrowers over 300 years of wait time by fast-tracking loans on First Access. Ranked among the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, Nicole has helped advance financial inclusion in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. First Access has been selected by Unreasonable Goals 2018 for SDG #1 – Poverty, by Entrepreneur Magazine for the Brilliant 100, by MIT for the Zambezi Prize, by PopTech for Social Innovation, and featured in over 70 events and publications, including The Financial Times, The Economist, and Forbes.

Mr. Yuqiang XIAO is the Chairman of ICBC US Management Committee, the General Manager of ICBC New York Branch, the Chairman of ICBC (USA) NA and the Chairman of ICBC Financial Services LLC. He also held the title of the senior economist of ICBC. Previously, Mr. XIAO had been serving as the General Manager of ICBC Paris Branch since 2010 (as head of the preparatory team of ICBC Paris Branch before its opening). Thanks to its remarkable business growth since establishment, ICBC Paris Branch soon became one of the most important foreign banks in France and was awarded as Best Investor of Ile-de-France in 2011. During 2005-2010, Mr. Xiao worked for ICBC Tokyo Branch. He was appointed the Assistant General Manager of ICBC Tokyo Branch first and then further promoted to the Deputy General Manager in 2007. He joined ICBC in the early 90s, working for its Jilin Branch in China; he engaged in international business and accumulated great experience in banking, especially in credit, int'l trading and business development. 

Helen Ye joined Ogilvy in 2016. She is in charge of the company’s China Outbound Practice, supporting brand building and high-level government exchange for Chinese companies who have established operations or seek investment opportunities in the US and Europe. Her clients include top China IT, fashion, bank companies, and National project. Meanwhile, Helen provides strategic consultancy to American companies who seek business opportunities in China. Helen Ye is the former Vice-Chair of American Chamber of Commerce in China who represents and advocates for over 1000 US companies in China. Before joining Ogilvy, Helen served as Vice President of the American
Chamber of Commerce in China in charge of government affairs from 2015-2016. She was responsible for planning and execution for advocacy efforts to support the investment and trade relations between the US and China and assisted with operational issues for American and multinational companies. 

Anne Miroux is Faculty Fellow at the Emerging Market Institute, Johnson School of Business at Cornell University. She has over thirty years of experience in international trade and finance. She began her career in the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations in New-York where she was involved in the negotiations on the UN Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations. In the mid-1980s she joined the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) where she specialized in particular on issues related to developing country debt, foreign direct investment and transnational corporations, and technology and innovation policies. For several years she led the organization’s work on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) statistics and directed the World Investment Reports (WIR), the United Nations flagship report on FDI and transnational corporations. She served as the Editor of the UN Transnational Corporations Journal. 

Peter Cornelius is a Managing Director at AlpInvest Partners, which is part of the Investment Solutions group of The Carlyle Group. At AlpInvest Partners, he is responsible for analyzing the economic and financial environment for private equity markets and examining the implications for the firm’s strategic asset allocation. Mr. Cornelius joined AlpInvest Partners in 2005 from Royal Dutch Shell, where he was Group Chief Economist. Previously, he was a chief economist and Director of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Program. Before that, he was head of international economic research at Deutsche Bank and a senior economist with the International Monetary Fund. Peter studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Göttingen where he received his doctorate in Economics. He has been a visiting professor at Leuven Gent Vlerick Management School and a visiting scholar at Harvard University. 

Pierre is a semi-retired entrepreneur, private investor, mentor and an advisor for business owners large and small. With his partners at Cerity Partners, he is also a wealth-strategy counselor for individuals, tech entrepreneurs, and business owners. For five years before that, Pierre was at Two Sigma Investments, where he invested personal capital in private deals in the US, Mainland China, and Israel. Through the 90s and early 00s, Pierre was an entrepreneur, co-founding five software companies resulting in 1.5 IPOs, one acquisition, and some spectacular failures. Pierre has been a direct investor in businesses in China and the US and has worked with individuals, families, and companies in both countries. Throughout his life, Pierre has experienced the residual issues and benefits from family ownership of one of the original twelve (and the longest-lived) companies in the DJIA, and the challenges and opportunities of family ownership today of one of the twenty largest private companies in America. 

Timothy Heyman is President of Franklin Templeton Asset Management Mexico. From 1997, he developed Heyman y Asociados SC as a leading institutional investment manager in Mexico and in 2013, merged it with Franklin Templeton Investments, one of the largest asset management companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Before founding Heyman y Asociados, He was President of ING Baring Grupo Financiero (México), S.A. de C.V., and of Baring, S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, the first-ever foreign brokerage in Mexico. He was awarded first place by Institutional Investor magazine for Mexican economic, financial and stock market research for three successive years. He has been a member of the Board and of the Listing and Index Committees of the Mexican Stock Exchange, President of the Research Committee of the Mexican Brokerage Houses’ Association, and President of the Economic Studies Committee of the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives (IMEF).

Mark W. Nelson is the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean and Professor of Accounting at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell. He received his BBA degree from Iowa State University and his MA and Ph.D. degrees from The Ohio State University. Nelson's teaching focuses on corporate financial reporting and intermediate financial accounting at the MBA and undergraduate levels. He has received ten teaching awards, including Cornell's Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, the Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, and the inaugural Cook Prize for Graduate Teaching presented by the American Accounting Association. He is a co-author (with Spiceland, Sepe, and Thomas) of a leading textbook, Intermediate Accounting. Nelson's research examines psychological and economic factors that influence how people make decisions interpret and apply accounting, auditing, and tax regulations and trade in financial markets. 

Andrew is Deputy Dean and College Dean for Academic Affairs at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He is a professor of finance and holder of the Harold Bierman Jr. Distinguished Professorship in the College’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is also a professor of economics at Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Karolyi is a scholar in the area of investment management with a specialization in the study of international financial markets. He has published extensively in journals in finance and economics, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies, and has published several books and monographs. His research has been covered extensively in print and electronic media, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Time, New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and CNBC.

Moacir is a Professor and the Head of the Business Administration Department at USP - University of São Paulo. Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge - Judge Business School (1997-1998). Chief Editor of INMR – Innovation and Management Review (Emerald); Conference Chair of the 2021 Triple Helix Conference in São Paulo; founding member of the Academy of International Business - Latin America Chapter. Co-editor of the book Startups and Innovation Ecosystems in Emerging Markets (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and five other books. Author of more than 50 academic papers. His research interests are related to Startups and Innovation Ecosystems in Emerging Markets and also in Strategy and Innovation in Emerging Markets Corporations. As a consultant in the field of strategy, innovation, and international business, he has been working for major corporations and the government.

Momina is IFC’s Global Head of Microfinance/ Financial Inclusion and works also as Principal Investment Officer in IFC's Financial Institution Group (FIG). She covers IFC’s microfinance investment and advisory activities globally, which exceeds cumulative investments of US$6 billion worldwide with over 300 MFIs, in addition to advisory services worth $63.7 million in 68 projects across 30 countries. This includes oversight of the work in Responsible Forum (which IFC manages for the GPFI/ G20), institutional transformation and capacity building – to better enable financial sector providers to provide diverse and reliable products and services to suit their clients’ needs. She is leading IFC’s efforts to scale up private sector commitments with strategic partners in the digital finance, microfinance and fin-tech space committed to achieving the World Bank Group’s Universal Financial Access by 2020.

Ms. Hyeshin Park is an Economist and Gender Programme Co-ordinator with the Networks, Partnerships and Gender Division at the OECD Development Centre. Ms. Park is currently leading the Gender team to explore how discriminatory social norms are perpetuating gender inequalities and women’s empowerment opportunities through the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). Ms. Park joined the OECD in 2011 and co-ordinated two major projects on migration and development that involve large primary data collection and policy dialogues. She focused her work on gender equality and women’s empowerment, the links between migration and development, labor market and public policies in developing countries. She holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics from Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Mr. Charles Ferraz is the CEO of the Itau USA Asset Management (IUAM) since August 2016. IUAM is part of Itau Asset Management Business, which has approximately USD 156 bi under management. He is in charge of defining and managing the growth strategy of IUAM in the global markets. Before moving to the Asset Management Division, he was the CIO of the Wealth Management Division in Itau Brazil. He supervised the Investment Strategy and Counseling, Wealth Planning and the Investment Products to Itau Private Bank clients. Until 2009, Mr. Ferraz was in charge of the Investment Strategy and Counseling on international markets and products, supervising a group of professionals based in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. Before joining Itau, Mr. Ferraz was the Managing Partner and Managing Director in charge of the BankBoston Asset Management, a Bank of America company in Brazil, acquired by Itau in 2006.

Efe Ukala is the founder of ImpactHER, an impact-driven organization that focuses on bridging the financing gap for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa. The organization achieves its mission by helping African women business owners (i) access institutional capital for their business, (ii) scale their businesses while also helping them tackle business operational challenges, (iii) access new markets through the use of technology, and (iv) become investor-ready. ImpactHER has trained over 4000 African female entrepreneurs in 34 African countries, on a pro bono basis, on how to run successful businesses and become investor-ready. ImpactHER’s intervention has, (i) launched hundreds of African female-led businesses online, (ii) helped African women supply their products to U.S. vendors, and (iii) given African female-led SMEs access to over $1billion in institutional capital.

Bryce Quillin is the Head of Global Economics at Pfizer, where he sets the in-house view on the economic landscape and provides economic advice to units across the organization. Previously, he spent over a decade as a senior economist at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and was chief economist at a quant hedge fund. He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and has published books, articles, and policy notes in the areas of macroeconomics, international finance, economic development, demographics, and migration. He taught economics, finance, and public policy at LSE, McGill, and Georgetown.