Ninth annual conference of the European Systemic Risk Board - Speakers

Programme

Christine Lagarde has been President of the ECB and, in this function, also Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board since November 2019.

Between 2011 and 2019 she served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that she served as French Minister of Economy and Finance from 2007 to 2011, having been Trade Secretary from 2005 to 2007. A lawyer by background, she practised for 20 years with international law firm Baker McKenzie, of which she became Global Chair in 1999. She was the first woman to hold each of these positions.

In 2022 President Lagarde was ranked the second most influential woman in the world by Forbes. She has also been recognised by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She was named Officer in the French Order of the Legion of Honor in April 2012 and Commander in the National Order of Merit in May 2021.

Maria Luís Albuquerque is currently the European Commissioner for Financial Services and the Savings and Investments Union. She is a highly experienced Portuguese economist and politician, best known for her role as Minister of Finance in Portugal from 2013 to 2015. During her tenure, she played a critical role in managing the country's financial crisis. Prior to her position as Finance Minister, Albuquerque held various key positions in the public sector, including Head of Issuing and Markets at the Portuguese Treasury and Debt Management Agency. After leaving politics, she continued her career in the private sector, contributing her expertise in finance and economic policy to international organisations and advisory roles. Her professional experience reflects a deep understanding of fiscal management, economic reform, and European financial systems.

Viral V. Acharya is the C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern). He was a Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during January 2017 to 23rd July 2019 in charge of Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, Financial Stability, and Research. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Corporate Finance, a Research Affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). He is or has been an Academic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York and Philadelphia, and the Board of Governors, and has provided Academic Expert service to the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He is a member of the Bundesbank Research Council since January 2025, a Scientific Advisor to the Sveriges Riksbank since February 2024, a member of the Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee (CFRAC) of the Financial Stability Oversight Council for 2023-26, an invited member of the Bellagio Group of academics and policy-makers from central banks and finance ministries since 2021, and a member of the Financial Advisory Roundtable (FAR) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2020. His primary research interest is in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risk of the financial sector, its regulation and its genesis in government- and policy-induced distortions, an inquiry that cuts across several other strands of research – credit risk and liquidity risk, their interactions and agency-theoretic foundations, as well as their general equilibrium consequences. In recent work, he has also studied the impact of pandemic and climate-change related risks.

Thorsten Beck is Director of the Florence School of Banking and Finance and Professor of Financial Stability at the European University Institute. He is co-chair of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board (2023-27) and is Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the CESifo. He was Professor of Banking and Finance at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) in London between 2013 and 2021 and Professor of Economics from 2008 to 2014 and the founding Chair of the European Banking Center from 2008 to 2013 at Tilburg University. Previously he worked in the Research Department of the World Bank from 1997 to 2008. He holds a PhD from the University of Virginia and an MA from the University of Tübingen in Germany.

Yoshua Bengio is Full Professor of Computer Science at Université de Montreal, Co-President and Scientific Director of LawZero, as well as the Founder and Scientific Advisor of Mila and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. Considered one of the world’s leaders in Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, he is the recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, considered to be the "Nobel Prize of computing." He is also the most cited computer scientist worldwide.

Professor Bengio is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London and Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Knight of the Legion of Honor of France, a member of the UN’s Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology, and chairs the International AI Safety Report.

Nathanaël (Nat) Benjamin was appointed as the Bank of England’s Executive Director for Financial Stability Strategy and Risk and a member of its Financial Policy Committee (FPC) in December 2023. The FPC is the United Kingdom’s ‘macroprudential’ authority and it is tasked by Parliament with ensuring financial stability so that the UK financial system is able to absorb rather than amplify shocks, and serve UK households and businesses. Nat is responsible for the Bank of England’s work to deliver this objective.

Before that, from October 2021 to December 2023, Nat was the Executive Director in charge of Authorisations, Regulatory Technology, and International Supervision.

Nat originally joined the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) in 2004, where he held a range of risk specialist roles: supervising how firms measure credit, market, insurance, and counterparty risks. During this time he also participated in policy developments under the Basel Committee and the European banking and insurance authorities. He became closely involved in the management of the global financial crisis, first in the UK and then at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he was seconded from 2008 to 2010. After returning from secondment, he became Head of the Prudential Regulation Authority’s Division responsible for equipping the Bank of England with the capability to run concurrent public stress tests of major banks. In 2015, he was appointed to head the newly-created financial risk oversight function for the Bank of England's own balance sheet. In 2020 he became interim Chief Financial Officer, acting as the Executive Director in charge of the Finance and Performance Directorate.

Nat graduated from the École Centrale de Paris and has a doctorate in Applied Probability from Oxford University.

Aino Bunge is Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank). Previously, she was Vice President and Head of Staff at AMF Pension and has served as Director-General for Financial Markets at the Ministry of Finance, and Executive Director for Markets, Economic Analysis and Policy at the Swedish Financial Supervisory Agency (Finansinspektionen). She earned her MSc in Economics and Master of Laws from Uppsala University and LL.M. in International Finance and Law from Harvard University. She currently serves as Vice-Chair of the ESRB's Advisory Technical Committee (ATC), and on several committees with the European Central Bank and Bank for International Settlements.

Since April 2023, Marco Buti holds the Tommaso Padoa Schioppa chair at the Robert Schuman Centre. Before joining the European University Institute, Buti was Chief of Staff of the Commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni. Between 2008 and 2019, he was Director-General for Economic and Financial Affairs at the European Commission. Moreover, he has been the Commission Finance Deputy at G7 and G20.

A graduate of the universities of Florence and Oxford, he has published several books over the last two decades as well as many scholarly articles and policy papers on Economic and Monetary Union, the political economy of European integration, fiscal policies and policy mix, unemployment and welfare state reforms, the EU budget, and global economic governance.

In October 2021, he published the book 'The Man Inside – A European Journey through Two Crises', which revisits the European economic policy design and implementation over the past decade. In April 2023, he published the book 'Jean Monnet aveva ragione? - Costruire l’Europa in tempi di crisi'. In addition, he has recently piloted a research strand on European public goods.

A regular contributor to the daily 'Il Sole 24 ore', he is also a Senior Fellow at Bruegel and a member of the CEPR Research Policy Network.

Rama Cont is Professor of Mathematics and Chair of Mathematical Finance at the University of Oxford, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

His research focuses on mathematical modelling of financial risk and applications of machine learning and AI in finance.

Professor Cont has a long experience as advisor to central banks, financial institutions, central counterparties and FinTech firms on projects related to the design and stress testing of quantitative risk systems and applications of AI in finance.

He received the Louis Bachelier Prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 2010 and was elected Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in 2017 for contributions to stochastic analysis and mathematical modelling in finance. In 2017 he received the Royal Society Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research for his work on systemic risk modelling.

John Fell is Deputy Director General for Macroprudential Policy and Financial Stability at the European Central Bank (ECB). In this role, he oversees the ECB’s Financial Stability Review, a semi-annual publication, and steers the development and coordination of macroprudential policy for the euro area. He chairs the ECB’s Financial Stability Contact Group, facilitating dialogue with financial industry professionals on stability-related matters, and represents the ECB on key committees, including the ECB’s Financial Stability Committee, the European Systemic Risk Board’s Advisory Technical Committee, and the Financial Stability Board’s Standing Committee on Assessing Vulnerabilities.

John has held several leadership positions in international working groups, such as chairing the Eurosystem’s Macroprudential Policy Group, the ESRB’s Instruments Working Group, and the ESRB’s stress-testing task force. He was instrumental in leading the stress-testing efforts for the ECB’s 2014 comprehensive assessment and coordinated scenario design for all EU-wide banking sector stress-tests between 2009 and 2022. He has extensive experience in systemic crisis management, including negotiating EU/IMF financial assistance programs in Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.

From 2003 until 2010, John headed the ECB’s Financial Stability Division, where he played a key role in launching the Financial Stability Review in 2004. Prior to this, he served as an Adviser in the ECB’s

Monetary Policy Directorate. Before joining the ECB in 1998 as a principal economist, he worked at the European Monetary Institute and the Central Bank of Ireland.

John holds postgraduate degrees in Economics and Finance from University College Dublin and Dublin City University, and he is currently a PhD candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. His research has been published in academic and policy journals.

Arved Fenner is currently working as a Quantitative Risk Analyst with a focus on the validation of liquidity and credit risk models at a leading bank for commercial real estate financing and the largest issuer of covered bonds in Germany.

He holds a PhD in Banking from the University of Muenster, where his research focused on the perception and modeling of credit risk, particularly in securitisation transactions. Prior to that, he completed his Master’s degree in Finance at the same university.

Leonardo Gambacorta is the Head of the Emerging Markets unit at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Prior to his current role, he served as Head of Innovation and Digital Economy (2019-2024), Research Adviser (2014-2018) and Head of Monetary Policy (2010-12) in the Monetary and Economic Department. Before joining the BIS, he was Head of the Money and Credit Unit (2007-2009) and Head of the Banking Sector Unit (2004-2006) in the Research Department of the Bank of Italy. He was a visiting scholar at the National Bureau of Economic Research (2002–03). Leonardo holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Warwick and a PhD in Economics from the University of Pavia. His primary research interests include monetary transmission mechanisms, the effectiveness of macroprudential policies in curbing systemic risk, and the effects of technological innovation on financial intermediation. He is also Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Ian Goldin is Oxford University Professor of Globalisation and Development and the founding Director of the Oxford Martin School, the world’s leading centre for interdisciplinary research into critical global challenges, where he started 45 research programmes including over 400 academics. Ian leads research groups on Technological and Economic Change, Future of Work and Future of Development. Ian previously was World Bank Vice President and the Group’s Director of Policy, and served on the World Bank Executive and other key committees. Before joining the World Bank he was Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Economic Advisor to President Nelson Mandela, accompanying President Mandela on all major international engagements and serving as Finance Director for South Africa’s Olympic Bid. His previous positions include Principal Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Programme Director of the Trade and Environment Programmes at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Centre.

Ian has a BA (Hons) and BSc from the University of Cape Town, an MSc from the London School of Economics, an AMP from INSEAD and an MA and Doctorate from the University of Oxford. He has published over 50 academic papers, including Why is Productivity Slowing Down? in the Journal of Economic Literature.

The most recent of Ian’s 25 books are Age of the City and The Shortest History of Migration. His previous books including Rescue: From Global Crisis to a Better World; Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years; Age of Discovery: Navigating the Storms of our Second Renaissance; The Butterfly Defect: How globalisation creates systemic risks and what to do about them; The Pursuit of Development: Economic Growth, Social Change and Ideas; Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define our Future and Is the Planet Full?.

Ian has written and presented three BBC series, After the Crash, Will AI Kill Development and The Pandemic that Changed the World and the BBC Analysis The Death of Globalisation?.

Ian was knighted by the French Government for his services to development and is Chair of the core-econ.org initiative to transform economics, a founding Director of the Center for Future Generations, a member of the International Science Council, and an honorary trustee of Comic Relief and other charities. Ian has advised over 100 governments and international institutions and served as a non-executive Director on the boards of leading listed companies and as a Chair of Risk, Credit, Investment, Ethics and Remuneration Committees.

Ian occasionally tweets on @ian_goldin is on Bluesky @iangoldin and his website is iangoldin.org

Dr. Cornelia Holthausen is Director General for Macroprudential Policy and Financial Stability at the European Central Bank (ECB), responsible for providing policy advice on macroprudential policies, financial stability and financial regulation, as well as conducting analysis, market monitoring and stress testing exercises for identifying and assessing financial sector risks.

Holthausen chairs the ESCB’s Financial Stability Committee and is member of the Basel Committee of Banking Supervision. She also attends the Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation under the Financial Stability Board.

Before taking up her current position in 2021, she held positions as Deputy Director General in DG Markets and DG Economics, as well as Head of the Financial Research Division at the ECB.

Vasso Ioannidou is Professor of Finance at Bayes Business School and Research Fellow in Financial Economics at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

Her research focuses on banking and corporate finance, with particular emphasis on bank behaviour, performance, and prudential regulation. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and Management Science, and has been featured in prominent media outlets such as the Financial Times and The Economist. She has received several awards and distinctions in recognition of her scholarly contributions.

Vasso is actively involved in shaping academic discourse and policy debates related to banking and finance. She currently serves as a member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), a Senior Research Consultant at the European Central Bank (ECB), and as Associate Editor for the European Economic Review, the Journal of Banking and Finance and the Journal of Financial Stability.

Before joining Bayes in 2021, she held professorial positions at Lancaster University Management School (2013-2020) and at Tilburg University (2010-2013). Vasso earned her PhD in Economics from Boston College. 

Philipp Klein is both Interim Professor of Finance, Accounting and Taxation at Goethe-University of Frankfurt since September 2025 and a postdoctoral researcher at the Finance Center Münster. Previously, he served as Interim Professor at the University of Paderborn from 2023 to 2024, and as Research Fellow of the German Research Association at the Finance Department of the University of Zürich. His research focuses on banking and regulation, information provision and processing on financial markets, as well as sustainable banking. He has published in leading finance journals, such as the Journal of Financial Intermediation and the Journal of Financial Stability, and has also contributed to policy-related publications.

He holds a PhD from the University of Münster, where he previously obtained an MSc and a BSc in Economics.

Francesco Mazzaferro has been the Head of the Secretariat of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) since January 2011. Prior to that, he was the Project Manager of the ESRB Preparatory Secretariat, which started work in March 2010.

He began his career in financial research in the Research Department of the Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino (today part of Intesa Sanpaolo) in Turin, Italy, in 1987. In 1992, he joined the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, starting his international career in the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs, where his work focused on the European Currency Unit and preparations for the introduction of the single currency. In 1995, he joined the European Monetary Institute – which later became the European Central Bank – in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, as the Officer of Policy Planning. In 1998, he became the Senior European Relations Officer in the European Relations Division. From 2000, he worked as Principal in the EU Neighbouring Regions Division, becoming the Head of Division in 2003.

Francesco studied law at the University of Bologna and wrote his Master’s thesis on “EU law and legal aspects of the euro”.

Loriana Pelizzon is Deputy Scientific Director, Head of the Financial Market Department, and Coordinator of Gender Equality at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE and Full Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, Chair of Law and Finance. She is also a Research Affiliate at MIT Sloan, Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and Professor of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She graduated from the London Business School with a Doctorate in Finance. Her research interests are on risk measurement and management, hedge funds, market microstructure, financial institutions, systemic risk, sovereign risk and financial crisis. She was one of the coordinators of the European Finance Association Doctoral Tutorial, member of the Executive Committee of the European Finance Association, and member of the BSI GAMMA Foundation Board. She has been involved in the National Bureau of Economic Research and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation projects as well as EU projects (Marie Curie, FP7, H2020 and HEUROPE), Europlace, Eurofidai, EIBURS and Inquire Europe, Einaudi Institute of Economics and Finance, Bank of France projects, Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito, German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and VolkswagenStiftung . She was a member of EIOPA’s Insurance and Reinsurance Stakeholder Group and is currently Vice-Chair of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board, member of the EU independent expert advice team in the field of financial markets and institutions and external Expert for the EU commission on digital currency and blockchain technology.

Adam S. Posen has contributed to research and public policy on G20 macroeconomic policies, inflation targeting and central bank independence, European economic integration since the euro, Japan’s recovery from its Great Recession, and recently a series of influential articles on the future of globalization amidst China-US conflict.

From 2009 to 2012, Posen served as an external voting member of the Bank of England's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He served seven terms on the Panel of Economic Advisors to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. He is the recipient of the CBE medal for his service to British economic policy and of the Order of the Rising Sun with Gold Rays for his contributions to Japanese economic policy. He received his BA and PhD from Harvard University

Dr Olli Rehn is Governor of the Central Bank of Finland (Suomen Pankki) and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank as of 12 July 2018. Dr Rehn is also First Vice-Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB).

Mr Rehn served as Vice-President of the European Commission in 2011–2014. As a Member of the European Commission, he was responsible for enlargement in 2004–2010 and for economic and monetary affairs in 2010-2014.

Before joining the central bank, Mr Rehn served as Minister of Economic Affairs and he has been a Member of the Finnish and European Parliaments.

Mr Rehn holds a degree of Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in international political economy from the University of Oxford.

Special interests of Mr Rehn include reading, football and cycling, sauna and the summer cottage.

Carina Schlam is a sustainability expert, currently working at the Deutsche Bundesbank in the Directorate General Banking and Financial Supervision. She joined the Bundesbank in 2020, initially in risk analysis before moving towards sustainability. In 2022, she spent six months as a researcher at the Bundesbank’s Research Centre. Her research mainly focuses on the design and effects of banking regulation as well as climate-related financial risks. She has published in both policy-relevant and academic journals, including the Journal of Financial Intermediation.

Carina Schlam holds a PhD in Finance from the University of Münster, where she also obtained her MSc in Finance. She earned her BA in Business Administration with a focus on banking from the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University.