Chief Guest Mr. Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, Managing Director and CEO, Bandhan.

Anjan Thakor is the John E. Simon Professor of Finance and director of the Ph.D. program at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining Olin Business School in 2003, Professor Thakor was the Edward J. Frey Professor of Banking and Finance at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where he also served as chairman of the Finance area. He has served on the faculties of Indiana University, Northwestern University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Professor Thakor has advised major companies including Whirlpool Corporation, Allison Engine Co., Citigroup, RR Donnelley, Dana Corporation, Anheuser-Busch, Zenith Corporation, Lincoln National Corporation, J.P. Morgan, Landscape Structures, Inc., CIGNA, Borg-Warner Automotive, Waxman Industries, Reuters, The Limited, Ryder Integrated Logistics, AT&T, CH2M Hill, Takata Corporation, Tyson Foods, Spartech, and Bunge. He has also served as an expert witness in federal cases involving banking litigation.

Since 1996, Jay R. Ritter has served as the Joseph Cordell Eminent Scholar in the Department of Finance at the University of Florida. He teaches corporate finance classes at the undergraduate, masters, and PhD level. Prof Ritter is known as “Mr. IPO” for his work on initial public offerings. He is a leading academic authority on the market for newly issued stock. He has previously served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois and was a visiting professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. During 2014-15, he is serving as president of the Financial Management Association. He received his BA, MA, and PhD (1981) degrees in economics and finance from the University of Chicago.