Speaker Bios
May 18 • 9:30–11:00 a.m. (ET) • 3:30–5:00 p.m. (CET) • Virtual
Speaker Bios
Shelly Antoniewicz, PhD
Rochelle (Shelly) Antoniewicz is Senior Director of Industry and Financial Analysis at the Investment Company Institute (ICI) where she conducts research on the structure and trends of the US and global ETF, mutual fund, and closed-end fund industries and on the equity and bond markets in the US and globally. Since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Shelly also has contributed heavily to analysis on financial systemic risks in the US and more recently in the global arena. She also conducts economic analysis to better understand the costs, benefits, and impacts of proposed laws and regulations governing mutual funds and ETFs (e.g., summary prospectus, Rule 12(b)(1), Rule 30(e)(3), and derivatives). Prior to joining ICI in 2005, Shelly spent 13 years as a staff economist and Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board. She earned a BA in Management Science from the University of California, San Diego and an MS and PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Sean Collins, PhD
Sean Collins is Chief Economist at the Investment Company Institute. He oversees the Institute's statistical collections and its research on US and global funds, financial markets, the US retirement market, and investor demographics. His research and analysis focuses on the flows, assets, fees, and industrial organization of registered investment companies; financial market issues; the costs and benefits of laws and regulations governing funds; money market funds; and financial stability. He has held several roles at ICI, most recently Senior Director of Industry and Financial Analysis. Before joining ICI in 2000, Collins was a Staff Economist at the Federal Reserve Board and an Economist at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, where he participated on the RBNZ's Monetary Policy Committee. He is a current member of the Group of Economic Advisers (GEA) to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). He has a PhD in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a BA in economics from Claremont McKenna College
Mark J. Flannery, PhD
Mark J. Flannery has been the Bank of America Eminent Scholar in Finance at the University of Florida since 1989. He has published extensively, particularly in the areas of corporate finance and the financial regulatory process, particularly as it applies to banks in the US and abroad.
His “hands on” regulatory experience most recently includes more than two years as the Chief Economist and Director of the Division of Economics and Risk Analysis at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In that position, he was involved in developing rules and regulations for the mutual fund industry, CDS trading standards, and various equity market and firm reporting requirements.
Professor Flannery previously worked with other US regulatory agencies: part-time Senior Adviser to the Office of Financial Research from 2011-2014, the New York Fed’s Financial Advisory Roundtable (2006-2014) and the Federal Reserve System’s stress-test-related Model Validation Council (May 2012 –2014, chair 2013-2014). In 2003, he helped establish the FDIC’s Center for Financial Research and then served as co-director and senior adviser until 2007.
He holds economics degrees from Princeton (AB) and Yale (MA, M.Phil., and PhD). He served as president of the Financial Intermediation Research Society (FIRS), president and board chairman of the Financial Management Association, and member of the board of directors of the American Finance Association. He was an editor of the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking from 2000-2005. He previously held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), and visiting positions at NYU, the London Business School, and the University of New South Wales.
He has been recognized for excellence in both teaching and research: MBA teaching award (Best core course professor in 2006, 2009, and 2014); FMA Fellow; “Most Significant Paper” published in the Journal of Financial Intermediation during 2013; Jensen Prize for Corporate Finance and Organizations at the Journal of Financial Economics (second prize in 2012, first prize in 2013); “Best Paper in Financial Institutions," 1995 Financial Management Association Meeting.
Current research interests include the stability of “shadow banking” institutions and Islamic banking.
Craig M. Lewis, PhD
Craig M. Lewis, PhD, is the Madison S. Wigginton Professor of Finance and a Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. In May 2011, US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro named Professor Lewis Chief Economist and Director of the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis. During his three years at the SEC, Lewis led efforts to bolster the role of economic analysis in the financial regulatory process, particularly with implementation of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law. He returned to Vanderbilt at the beginning of the 2014 academic year.
Professor Lewis' interests include corporate financial policy and asset pricing. Most recently, he has employed textual analysis of qualitative factors in corporate disclosures to detect potential fraud. Earlier work included topics such as convertible debt financing, corporate capital formation, forecasting stock market volatility, and herding by equity analysts.
A frequent speaker and guest lecturer, Lewis primarily teaches corporate finance. He is a two-time recipient of the James A. Webb Award for Excellence in Teaching, Outstanding EMBA Professor, and the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management. Professor Lewis is also a Certified Public Accountant and worked for Arthur Young & Company prior to completing his advanced degrees and joining the Owen faculty in 1986.
Christof W. Stahel, PhD
Christof Stahel is a Senior Economist in the Investment Company Institute’s Research department. He works on issues related to the mutual fund industry. Specifically, he focuses on systemic risk in the context of the asset management industry, trends in passive investments, common ownership, fund usage of derivatives, and fund liquidity risk management.
Prior to joining ICI, Stahel was the Assistant Director in the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis at the US Securities and Exchange Commission leading the division’s Office of Asset Management. In 2015, he was selected to be a member of the Financial Stability Board’s Market Experts Group, in 2016 he was selected as the Commission’s representative to IOSCO’s Committee on Emerging Risks before becoming the globally‑elected Vice Chair of IOSCO’s Committee on Emerging Risks.
Stahel joined the SEC in 2012 from academia. His research has been published in leading finance journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Intermediation. He continues to conduct academic style research in the areas of investments and markets. Stahel received his PhD in Finance from The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business in 2004, where he wrote his dissertation under Professor René Stulz. He also holds an MA in Economics and an MA in Econometrics. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked as an Economist at the Swiss Central Bank in Switzerland and was a Lecturer in Econometrics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland.
Laura T. Starks, PhD
Laura T. Starks, PhD, is the George Kozmetsky Centennial Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Her current research focuses on ESG issues, including climate finance and board diversity, as well as molecular genetics and financial decisions. She has won many awards for her research and teaching, including the 2021 Moskowitz Prize, which is the premier global prize for research in sustainable finance. She is Research Associate of the NBER, Research Member for the ECGI, and Senior Fellow for ABFER. She is President of the American Finance Association. She has previously served as President of the Society of Financial Studies, Western Finance Association and Financial Management Association. She has served in a number of editorial positions including Editor of the Review of Financial Studies and Advisory Editor for the Financial Analysts Journal. She has served on mutual funds’ boards of directors, pension fund advisory committees, the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute, the Governing Council of the Independent Directors Council, and advisory committees for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund and the Norwegian Finance Initiative. She currently serves on academic advisory boards or committees for AIF Global, FTSE-Russell, Pacific Center for Asset Management, Texas Wall Street Women and PRI (Principles of Responsible Investing), where she is also Vice-Chair.