Kose John is the Charles William Gerstenberg Professor of Banking and Finance at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Florida. He has also taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Institut D'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences PO). He has won several awards including the Batterymarch Fellowship in 1983 and the Jensen Prize for the Best Paper published in 2000 in the Journal of Financial Economics. He is on the Nominating Committee for the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2017. He is the author of two books (on futures markets and dividend policy) and the editor of 23 books and special issues of finance journals, on topics such as financial stability, financial distress, and valuation of distressed securities, corporate governance, and investments innovations in finance. He has published over 103 research articles in the major finance and economics journals. His recent research focuses on banking, financial crisis, corporate governance, top-management compensation, and financial distress, valuation of distressed claims, and comparative bankruptcy and governance systems. He has completed 57 Working Papers in addition to his published work. He serves as the President of the Financial Management Association International. He also serves as the Program Chair of the Association of Financial Economists. He has been a mentor and advisor to a large number (90) of doctoral students who are finance professors and finance practitioners all over the world.

Dr. John received his Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Kerala, India, his masters in computer science from the Florida Institute of Technology, and his Doctor of Philosophy in management science from the University of Florida.

Julapa Jagtiani is Senior Economic Advisor and Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and a Fellow member of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. She joined the Philadelphia Fed in 2008 as Senior Special Advisor in the Supervision, Regulation, and Credit Department. Julapa has conducted research and participated in several supervisory policy and implementation projects, including serving on the Federal Reserve Fintech Task Force and a member of the Risk Council Fintech Subgroup. Previously, Jagtiani was a senior economist at the Chicago Fed and Kansas City Fed, and prior to that she was Associate Professor in the Finance Department at Baruch College, the City University of New York. She has published articles in top finance journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics; the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking; and the Journal of Banking and Finance. Her recent research has focused on issues related to Fintech, use of alternative data and AI/ML in credit decisions, small business lending, and community bank mergers. Jagtiani has also been active in the community and has served on the board of directors and finance committees at various organizations, including the Leadership Council Board of Directors for the American Red Cross, the Center for Practical Bioethics, and the Parents Council at Johns Hopkins University. Jagtiani has a PhD in finance and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business.?