Michael Turner (Chair)—Chapel Hill, NC
President, PERC

Dr. Turner currently serves as President and Senior Scholar of PERC, which he founded. He is a prominent expert on credit access, credit reporting and scoring, information policy, and economic development. He has testified before Congress and numerous state legislatures, and presented studies to a host of government agencies including the FTC, the FCC, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the White House.

Dr. Turner was appointed to the first Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security by former Secretary Tom Ridge, and served on an Advisory Board at the Brookings Institution. He has advised senior government officials in more than 20 countries, and was a policy advisor to the Obama Campaign on urban policy.

Dr. Turner served as Graduate Fellow at the Columbia Institute of Tele-Information at the Columbia Business School, Executive Director of the Information Services Executive Council, manger of government affairs for the North American Telecommunications Association, and staff assistant in the U.S. Senate.

Dr. Turner received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in International Political Economy and his B.A. from Miami University in Economics. He was awarded a Yeck Fellowship from Harvard Business School, and was awarded the Ashoka Foundation Fellowship in 2009.

Robert Aiello—New York City, NY
Managing Director, Scura, Rise & Partners LLC

Rob Aiello is a Partner at SRP with 18 years of M&A and leveraged finance expertise with large and medium cap companies. While at Prudential Securities he was head of Technology M&A and a member of the Investment Banking Management Committee. Prior to joining Prudential, Rob held senior M&A positions at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette and J.P. Morgan. Rob joined SRP from Updata Capital, where he was a partner, and a leader in the firm software and IT services practice.

Rob is a recognized authority on mergers and acquisitions. He has spoken at numerous conferences, guest lectured at Harvard Business School, and co-authored he Friendly Art of M in the November-December 2000 issue of Harvard Business Review. Rob received Juris Doctor from the University of Toronto and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario.

Jennifer Barrett—Little Rock, AR
Global Privacy Officer, Acxiom Corporation

Jennifer Barrett is responsible for oversight of Acxiom Corporation's global public policy, privacy and information practices. Jennifer joined Acxiom in 1974 after receiving a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and  has  served  in an  executive  capacity  since  becoming  a vice president in 1981. She has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress about privacy and security matters and has published numerous articles and participated in writing books on these subjects.

Jennifer is currently active on a variety of industry boards, including various boards and councils of the U.S. Direct Marketing Association.   She recently served as co-chair of the Program Committee for the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation.

Kenneth Brown—Washington, DC
President, Technology Alliances Inc.

James Gutierrez—Mountain View, CA
CEO and Co-Founder, Progress Financial Corporation

James is a serial entrepreneur who is committed to helping the underbanked in the U.S. build wealth, enter the financial mainstream and achieve the American dream. In 2005, he co-founded Progreso Financiero, to offer unsecured credit under the name Progreso Financiero to Hispanic families that lack established credit scores and banking relationships.

Prior to Progreso Financiero, James worked at Morgan Stanley, Bain & Company, and as a venture investor with Martin Varsavsky (founder of fon, Viatel and Jazzetel) in Europe. He also founded and served as CEO of Magic Beanstalk, a venture backed recruiting company in 1999 that helped match college grads with employers in 50 leading US universities. James enjoys helping other entrepreneurs and has made early stage investments via Great Oaks Ventures in over 15 start-ups, including StubHub, Jumpcut, Trulia, Zimbio, OKCupid, and Icon Aircraft.

James is a Robert Toigo Fellow and alumnus of the SEO program in New York. He received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics from Yale University.

Eric Idehen—Des Moines, IA
Vice President and Diversity Consultant, Wells Fargo Financial Inc.

Born in Benin City, Nigeria , Eric earned a college degree in construction and worked in that industry for 16 years – eight years in Nigeria and seven in Europe.  He came to the U.S. in 2000 and is now an American citizen.  Eric joined the Wells Fargo team in 2001 as a Teller and now serves as VP Diversity Consultant after a long series of promotions including positions as Personal Banker and Community Development Officer.

Eric's list of awards and recognitions include the National Wells Fargo Sales & Service Medal (2005), Wells Fargo Diversity Champion Award (2008), and the Heroes of the Heartland International Impact Award from the American Red Cross Central Iowa Chapter (2008). In 2009, Eric became a U.S. Business Fellow Delegate to the Middle East for the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. He has been a board member for: the Iowa Council for International Understanding; Cornerstone of Hope, Inc.; Alianza (Latino Business Chambers of Iowa); and Lutheran Services Iowa – Refugee Advisory Committee.

Eric also founded an orphanage in his home town of Benin City to further his personal commitment to serving others using his time and talents. He is fluent in English, Spanish, Russian and five African dialects.

Michael Nathans—Annapolis, MD
Chief Compliance Officer, eCredable LLC

As the President of Trycera Financial, Inc. Credit Services, Michael G. Nathans applies his twenty-eight years of financial services experience in helping consumers establish a budget and personal financial statement, as well as builda good credit history and score without debt, important first steps to building assets and wealth.

Michael Nathans is a pioneer and widely recognized thought leader in the development of alternative credit reference reporting and scoring. In 2002 with grants from the Ford Foundation and matching R&D investments from Citigroup, IBM, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, Nathans founded the first alternative credit bureau in the U.S. named Pay Rent, Build Credit, Inc. (PRBC) and Payment Reporting Builds Credit, formerly the National Housing Credit Repository (NHCR). The bureau's goal was to end the disparate impact of credit scoring on apartment renters and other credit under-served classes by helping them build a credit history with the traditional, un-reported accounts they pay such as rent, cell phone, utilities, insurance and tuition .

During the five years prior to launching PRBC, Nathans worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the Asset Securitization, Mortgage Banking, and Financial Risk Management Practices located in Washington, DC.Prior to joining PwC, beginning in 1987 he served as President of Penn Capital, Inc., where he provided loan portfolio acquisition, bidding, and diposition strategies, as well as debt and equity placements for clients

Mr. Nathans began his professional career in 1981 as a vice president at Sterling Investments, a multi-family real estate brokerage firm where he specialized in the listing, sale and financing of more than one hundred unit apartment properties. Using insights gained in the multi-family business, he co-founded Just The Facts, Inc. in 1986, the first tenant screenng service in the Mid-Atlantic States to also have a proprietary data base of Landlord/Tenant Judgments from the 57 local courts. JFI enabled clients such as institutional owners and local property managers to obtain an Equifax, TRW, or TransUnion report and an L/T Judgment search, employment, and prior residence verification.

Michael received his B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College.

Eli Noam—New York City, NY
Director, Columbia Institute for Tele-Information and
Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

Eli Noam has been a Professor of Economics and Finance at the Columbia Business School since 1976. He served three years as a Commissioner for Public Services of New York State and was appointed by the White House to the President’s IT Advisory Committee. He is also Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, a research center focusing on management and policy issues in telecommunications.  He has taught at Columbia Law School, Princeton University’s Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School, and the University of St. Gallen. Noam has published 28 books and over 300 articles in economics journals, law reviews, and interdisciplinary journals, and is a regular columnist for the Financial Times online edition.

Noam has been a member of advisory boards for the Federal government’s telecommunications network, of the IRS computer system, of the National Computer Systems Laboratory, the National Commission on the Status of Women in Computing, the Governor’s Task Force on New Media, and of the Intek Corporation.  His academic, advisory, and non-profit board and trustee memberships include the Nexus Mundi Foundation (Chairman), Oxford Internet Institute, Jones International University (the first accredited online university), the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Minority Media Council, and several committees of the National Research Council.  He served in the Israel Air Force in the 1967 and 1973 wars, and is an active search and rescue pilot with the Civil Air Patrol (1st Lt.). He is married to Nadine Strossen, a law professor and national president of the American Civil Liberties Union. He received the degrees of BA, MA, Ph.D (Economics) and JD from Harvard University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Munich (2006) and the University of Marseilles (2008).

Katherine O’Neill—Berkeley, CA
Associate Professor, Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management
University of California-Berkeley

Katherine O'Neill's studies center on how the international community deals with global environmental problems. She is particularly focused on looking at various sites and modes of global environmental governance, from the system of treaties that govern international cooperation over the environment, to new forms of “non-state” governance, such as certification systems, to the role of powerful international institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.

She is the author of numerous publications, including "Transnational Protest: States, Circuses, and Conflict at the Frontline of Global Politics" (2004), "International Nuclear Waste Transportation: Flashpoints, Lessons and Controversies" (1999), and "Waste Trading Among Rich Nations: Building a New Theory of Environmental Regulation" (2000), the last for which she was awarded the Lynton K. Caldwell Prize for the Best Book in Environmental Policy.

Kate O'Neill received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and her BA from Brasenose College, Oxford University.

Harold Solomon—Atlanta, GA
Chief Operating Officer, Rent Bureau LLC

Mr. Solomon is a founder of Seraphim Partners, a technology investment fund, and the founder and CEO of Telekey, Inc., one of the first prepaid long distance telephone companies in the nation.  He also worked with IBM in Space Shuttle software development at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.  Mr. Solomon holds a BBA from Georgia State University.

Jennifer Tescher—Chicago, IL
Director, Center for Financial Services Innovation

Jennifer Tescher is the Director of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, launched in 2004 to promote and enhance financial services access and services to the underbanked. Towards that goal, CFSI develops and distributes real-world tested research and strategy, provides funding to promising companies, and facilitates cross-sector business collaboration. The Center is a non-profit affiliate of ShoreBank Corporation, the nation's leading community development bank holding company. Ms. Tescher has been part of the ShoreBank family since 1996 in a variety of capacities, focused primarily on the development and implementation of new financial products and services.

Ms. Tescher has guided CFSI since its inception, and has already achieved notable success in raising the profile of underbanked access and asset-building as an objective for the industry. She has become a nationally known expert on this topic, with a monthly column in American Banker, frequent interviews and articles in the financial services press, and major speaking engagements at a broad spectrum of industry events, including BAI's Retail Delivery; SourceMedia's Best Practices in Retail Financial Services, Card Forum, and ATM, Debit and Prepaid Forum; and the Underbanked Financial Services Forum, which she chairs as co-producer.

Ms. Tescher serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Project Match and the Credit Builders Alliance and is a member of Bank of America's National Community Advisory Council.  Ms. Tescher also serves as a member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, advising the Board on the exercise of its responsibilities under the Consumer Credit Protection Act and on other matters of consumer financial services.  A recipient of the Crain's Chicago Business "40 Under 40" Award for 2006, Ms. Tescher received undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and a public policy degree from the University of Chicago.