Program of Seminars World Bank Group - International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings Seminar Schedule Subject to Change

Building Better Banking, Part I: Banking System Fragility

Charles W. Calomiris is Paul M. Montrone Professor of Finance and Economics and Director of the Program in Financial Institutions at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, New York, and St. Louis and has been an advisor on banking reform to the governments of Argentina, Mexico, and El Salvador. He received a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

Gerard Caprio is Lead Economist in the World Bank Development Research Group. He was formerly Vice President and Head of Global Economics at JP Morgan and has held various research and teaching positions. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, and has researched and written extensively on financial sector policy, financial reform, and monetary policy implementation.

Edward J. Kane is James F. Cleary Professor of Finance at Boston College, after a 20-year tenure as Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics at Ohio State University. He has consulted for the World Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the American Bankers Association, and the Congressional Budget Office, among others. He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Randall S. Kroszner is Professor of Business Economics at the University of Chicago. He has served as an economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers and has been a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, New York, Kansas City and St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.

Guillermo Ortiz Martinez is the Secretary of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Ortiz served briefly as Secretary of Telecommunications and Transportation, and was President of the Banking Privatization Committee of the Ministry of Finance. Mr. Ortiz has taught at universities in Mexico and the United States, has published extensively, and has been an Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Ortiz earned a B.A. in Economics from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and a Masters in Economics and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Guillermo E. Perry is Chief Economist of the Latin America and Caribbean region at the World Bank. Previously he served his native country, Colombia, as Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Member of the Constitutional Assembly, Senator of the Republic, Director of the General Directorate of National Taxes, and in other capacities. He received both his B.S. in Engineering and an M.S. in Economics from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Columbia.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank and Joan Kenney Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He has served as Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. He has also taught at Princeton, Yale, and Oxford. In 1979 he was awarded the American Economic Association John Bates Clark Award. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a Fulbright Scholar and Tapp Junior Research Fellow at Cambridge University.

Mikio Wakatsuki is Chairman of the Board of Counselors at the Japan Research Institute, Ltd. His long association with the Bank of Japan has included positions as Director for the International Monetary Fund, Director of Research and Statistics, and Deputy Governor for International Relations. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Graduate School of Economics at Stanford University.

Berry K. Wilson is a research economist with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. He has worked for Citibank and taught at Georgetown University. His areas of interest are corporate finance, derivative security pricing, financial history with a particular emphasis on banking during the 1920-30s, and developing country financial systems. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from New York University.

Building Better Banking, Part II: A Framework for Sound Banking

David Carse is Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, where he is in charge of the full range of banking policy and supervision issues. He was seconded from the Bank of England to Hong Kong in 1991 as Commissioner of Banking with responsibility for banking supervision.

Jonathan Lee Fiechter is Director of the Financial Sector Development Department of the World Bank. He began his career as an International Economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and later joined the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the U.S. agency responsible for supervising national banks, where he was Deputy Comptroller for Economic Research.

David Folkerts-Landau is Assistant Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund, where he is in charge of international capital markets. He was previously Assistant Professor of Financial Economics in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University.

Richard Frank is Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer, Darby Overseas Investments, Ltd., U.S. Formerly he was Managing Director of the World Bank, and earlier he served as Vice President of Finance and Planning for the International Finance Corporation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of several U.S. and Latin American companies, and an Adjunct Professor of International Finance at Georgetown University Business School.

Ricardo Hausmann is the Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank. Previously he was the Minister of Coordination and Planning of Venezuela and the Chairman of the Joint Development Committee of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He has also served as a Director of the Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela.

South Asia: The Next Miracle?

Surjit S. Bhalla is President of OXUS Research and Investments in India and Managing Director of Statart Investments in Pennsylvania. His work in financial markets has brought him to the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, and the Deutsche Bank, and he has served as an advisor to the governments of Korea, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. He holds a Masters degree in Public Affairs and a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, and has published extensively.

Lal Jayawardena serves the Government of Sri Lanka as Economic Adviser to the President and Deputy Chairman of the National Development Council. Earlier appointments have included Assistant Secretary General at the United Nations, Ambassador to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and the European Communities, and Secretary to the Treasury and Secretary of Finance and Planning. He has published extensively and is an Honorary Fellow of Cambridge University, where he received his Ph.D.

Wahiduddin Mahmud is a Professor of Economics at Dhaka University and President of the Bangladesh Economic Association. He has served the Government of Bangladesh as the advisor to the interim Caretaker Government before the 1996 parliamentary elections and was also in charge of the Ministries of Finance and Planning. He has been on the governing bodies of a number of research and development organizations. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Cambridge University.

Hafeez Pasha is Deputy Chairman of the Government of Pakistan's Planning Commission and is Director of the Institute of Business Administration. He has held a number of public appointments, including Federal Minister for Commerce in the last Caretaker Government of Pakistan. Previously, he was Professor and Director of the Applied Economics Research Center at the University of Karachi, and has over 20 years of experience in research and teaching. He earned his M.A. from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

Mark Tully is a freelance writer and broadcaster based in New Delhi and has authored several books and articles on India. He was formerly with the British Broadcasting Corporation in various capacities, including Hindi Programme Organizer, South Asia Correspondent, and Chief of Bureau, BBC Delhi. He earned his M.A. in History and Theology from Cambridge University, and has received a number of awards for his contribution to radio.

John Williamson is Chief Economist, South Asia Region, at the World Bank. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Mr. Williamson has taught at the Universities of York and Warwick, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, London School of Economics, and Princeton University. He was educated at the London School of Economics and Princeton University.

Update on the International Monetary Fund's Data Dissemination Standards

Carol S. Carson is Director of the Statistics Department of the International Monetary Fund, and has been engaged in the data dissemination standards initiative since she joined the Fund in May 1995. Previously, she had held economist positions with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, most recently as Director.

Robert Chote is Economics Editor at The Financial Times, London. Previously, he was Economics Correspondent and Columnist for The Independent and The Independent on Sunday. He writes on U.K. and international economics and covers the activities of the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, and other international economic institutions.

Joaquin Ferran is Deputy Director of the Policy Development and Review Department of the International Monetary Fund. In this capacity he reviews Fund policy advice to G-7 and South East Asian countries. Previously, he was Director of the IMF Office in Europe, where he followed developments in the integration process in the European Union. He also held positions in the Western Hemisphere Department, which brought him in contact with economic issues in the United States and Canada as well as many Latin American countries.

Frederick Ho is Commissioner for Census and Statistics of Hong Kong, where he has held several professional positions since 1972.

Rajapakse Jayatissa is the Director of the Economic Research Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Earlier in his career he worked in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Finance, Government of Sri Lanka, and later became a Senior Economist in the Policy Development and Review Department of the International Monetary Fund. He is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Colombo.

Kevin O'Connor is Assistant Director in the Statistics Department of the International Monetary Fund. He has occupied a number of positions in both the Statistics Department and the Fiscal Affairs Department since joining the Fund in 1972. He has been involved with work on the data dissemination standards since its inception and, most recently, with the development of the General System.

Opportunities for Asian Investors in Africa

Cha Chi Ming is Chairman of United Nigerian Textiles plc., The Mingly Corporation Ltd., and HK International Ltd. He founded China Dyeing Works Ltd. in 1949, and subsequently built a network of textile manufacturing in China, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He took part in the drafting of The Basic Law of Hong Kong and served as a member of the Preparatory Committee for The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the National People's Congress. He is the recipient of various honorary degrees and medals, including Hong Kong's highest award, the Grand Bauhinia Medal.

Joseph Gondobintoro is Chairman of Panwell/GMG Group of Companies in Singapore, which has diversified invest-ments in Asia and more recently has been active in Africa. The Group's business include real estate, electronics, banks, insurance, automobiles, and more. He serves on the boards of several companies.

John Niepold is Portfolio Manager for The Africa Emerging Markets Fund and is responsible for African investments at Emerging Markets Management L.L.C and the Emerging Markets Investors Corporation. He also oversees the latter's investment activities in the Indian subcontinent. He received an M.B.A from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.A. in economics from Davidson College.

Ken Ofori-Atta is the Executive Chairman and co-founder of Databank Financial Services Ltd. of Accra, Ghana, an investment banking firm established in 1990. Mr. Ofori-Atta is a founding Executive Director of the West Africa Enterprise Network, a Council member of the Ghana Stock Exchange, and has also recently testified on the McDermott Bill in the U.S. Congress. He received a Bachelor's degree in economics from Columbia University and a Master's degree in management from the Yale School of Management.

H. P. Singhi is the Executive Director of Birla Brothers Pvt. Ltd., one of the largest industrial conglomerate in India, and Senior President of Orient Paper & Industries Ltd. He established the largest pulp and paper mill in Kenya, the Panafrican Paper Mills (E.A.) Ltd.-a joint venture between Orient Paper, the government of Kenya, and the International Finance Corporation-and another pulp and paper mill project in Nigeria. He has served as President of the Indian Paper Mills Association, and is currently a Committee Member of the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Conrad Strauss is Chairman of Standard Bank Investment Corporation, one of the largest banking and financial services groups in Africa. He is on the board of Transnet, the South African national transportation company, is Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Provision of Rural Financial Services, National Chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, and President of the SA Foundation. He holds degrees from Rhodes University and Cornell University.

Should Countries Care about Corruption?

Danny M. Leipziger is Manager of the World Bank's Economic Development Institute's Regulatory Reform and Private Enterprise Division. He has published widely in the areas of international finance and development, with his most recent book, Lessons of East Asia, focusing on public policy and governance. His past experience includes positions at USAID, the U.S. Department of State, and the East Asia and Latin American Regions of the World Bank. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University.

Ronald MacLean-Abaroa leads the research of the Central America Project of the Harvard Institute for International Development, working particularly on issues of devolution of powers and measures to fight corruption. He was the Mayor of La Paz, Bolivia, for four terms; has held cabinet positions in various administrations; and has served as advisor on governance issues to several governments and international organizations. He is the co-author of a forthcoming book on corruption in cities.

Samuel Paul is the Chairperson of the Public Affairs Centre, India, a nonprofit organization he established in Bangalore, dedicated to research and support for citizen action to improve the quality of governance in India. His work on public feedback includes report-card surveys, which aim to promote government accountability on issues of public program and service delivery. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton universities; served on several governmental committees and boards, and received several awards and honors. He has published extensively, including a recent book on corrup-tion in India.

Pasuk Phongpaichit has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Cambridge and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Chulalongkorn University. She is researching, among others, the areas of corruption and illegal economy and public policies. She was the Director of the Political Economy Center at Chulalongkorn University and is member of several Thai government committees and the academic member of the Board of the Institute of Labour Studies. She has co-authored a book on corruption in Thailand.

Joseph Sinde Warioba is a Senior Member in the International Law Chambers in Tanzania and a Judge in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany. He was the Prime Minister of Tanzania from 1985 to 1990, was previously Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and has been a delegate to several councils and con-ventions. He was the Chairman of the National Commission on Corruption in Tanzania and led the preparation of the 1996 report on the state of corruption in the country. He studied at the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands and was a UNITAR Fellow at the U.N. Secretariat and the World Bank.

Investment Opportunities in Egypt

Mona Aboelnaga is Vice President at Siguler Guff & Company and Portfolio Manager of its MENA Partners Fund, which will be investing in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. Before her current position, she was a member of the Leveraged Transactions Group of Paine Webber Investment Banking and a Public Policy Analyst for the Chairman of Paine Webber Group. She earned a B.S. in economics and marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. in finance and international business from Columbia Business School.

Jassim Al-Mannai is the Director General of the Arab Monetary Fund and CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Arab Trade Financing Program in the United Arab Emirates. He has also served as Executive Vice President of the Kuwait-based Gulf Investment Corporation. He attended the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and Harvard Business School.

Atef Mohamed Ebeid is Egypt's Minister of Public Enterprises and former State Minister for Administrative Development and Environmental Affairs. He also serves on several ministerial committees, including Environmental Affairs and the Higher Council for Policies and Economic Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. in business administration from Illinois University.

Ahmed Ezz is the Chairman of the Board of Ezz Group-Egypt, which includes steel, ceramics/porcelain, and heavy industry companies. The Group employs 2,600 people in Egypt and had a turnover in 1996/1997 of around LE1.4 billion. He is also Chairman of the Sadat City Investors Association and a member of national and international boards. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Cairo University.

John M. Page, Jr. has been Chief Economist for the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa region since 1993 and was recently named Director of the Region's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management network. He was the Project Director and principal author of the Bank's The East Asian Miracle, and was a faculty member at Princeton University before joining the World Bank.

Pension Reform and the Creation of Efficient Capital Markets

Koen de Ryck is Chairman and Managing Director of Pragma Consulting NV/SA, Brussels. He has been Permanent Representative of the European Federation for Retirement Provision/European Union Committee in charge of European pension fund relations with EU institutions. He is the author of a book on European pension funds.

Robert D. Hormats is Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (International). He has served as a Senior Staff Member for International Economic Affairs on the National Security Council and acted as Senior Economic Advisor to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski. He also held positions as Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs at the State Department, Ambassador and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs.

Pamela Tan is the Director of the Mandatory Provident Fund Office, Hong Kong. She has had a long career in the Hong Kong Government and extensive experience in different policy areas, including social services, trade, industry, monetary affairs, and financial services. Mrs. Tan, whose work with employment and pensions started in the late 1970s, headed the Working Group responsible for the establishment of the Mandatory Provident Fund Office of Hong Kong.

Salvador Valdes Prieto is Professor of Economics at the Universidad Católica de Chile. His main areas of interest are in financial systems, pensions and banking, industrial organization, and macroeconomics. He has published extensively on these topics, and recently edited a book on the economics of pensions. He has been a consultant to the governments of Bolivia, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, the People's Republic of China, and Peru. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds degrees in Industrial and Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Católica de Chile.

Dimitri Vittas is Adviser, Pensions and Insurance in the Financial Sector Development Department of the World Bank. Earlier in his career he worked at the British Bankers Association and other inter-bank entities in London. He has extensively studied policy issues in banking and finance.

The Impact of the Information Age in Developing Countries

James Bond is Director of the Energy, Mining and Telecommunications Department of the World Bank, and was previously Chief of the Telecommunications and Informatics Division. During his tenure, the World Bank reoriented its lending toward assisting its client countries in opening up telecommunications markets to private investors. He was also instrumental in the creation of InfoDev, a global information program. He holds a B.Sc. in chemical engineering, a post-graduate degree in petroleum economics, and a Doctorate in economics from the University of Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Denis Gilhooly is Vice President of Business Development at Teledesic Corporation, where he is responsible for developing strategic investor and service provider partnerships. Teledesic is a satellite communications network that will enable worldwide access to "fiber-like" telecommunications services. Previously, he was Media & Technology Director at The Wall Street Journal Europe. He is founding commissioner of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission in Washington D.C. He holds a B.A. from Cambridge College of Arts & Technology and an M.A. from The Shakespeare Institute.

Manuel Hinds has been Finance Minister of El Salvador since January 1995. Previously he was a private consultant with the World Bank, KPMG, and the Central Bank of El Salvador. As a consultant, he led several financial and operational missions to Russia, Hungary, the Palestinian territories, and Venezuela, advising on the restructuring of their financial and banking sectors. He holds a degree in industrial engineering from the University of El Salvador and an M.A. in economics from Northwestern University.

K. J. John is Vice President of IT Policy Development at MIMOS Berhad and Executive Secretary of the National Information Technology Council in Malaysia. At MIMOS Berhad he provides technological leadership in microelectronics and information technology. He was previously Director of Industrial Policy at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. He holds a M.Sc. in business management/marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph.D. in organization and management theory from George Washington University.

IMF Lending to Low-Income Countries: Strategies, Policies, and Outcomes

Anupan Basu is currently Deputy Director of the African Department of the International Monetary Fund, supervising work on structural adjustment programs and surveillance in the countries of Eastern and Southern Africa. He was formerly in the Fund's Policy Development and Review Department, where he was involved in the review of Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility programs.

Karin Lissakers is the U.S. Executive Director to the International Monetary Fund. Before her appointment to this position in 1993, Ms. Lissakers was a lecturer in international banking and the Director of the International Business and Banking Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Colombia University. She has many years of experience in policy making at senior levels in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and in the U.S. Congress. She has written extensively on foreign economic policy and on business-government relations in the international economic arena.

Benno Joseph Ndulu is the Executive Director of the African Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi, and is a Professor at the University of Dar-es-Salaam. He has extensive practical experience in the economic and social policy issues facing African countries, has served on many governmental committees in Tanzania, and has worked as a consultant or advisor to various international institutions, including the World Bank. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University.

Susan Schadler is Senior Advisor in the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund. She recently headed an IMF review of the experiences of Fund lending to low-income countries under the Extended Structural Adjustment Facility, and has had extensive experience as a Fund economist leading work on country programs and on research policy and review issues. She has published several papers on capital flows and on experiences of Fund programs.

Romania: New Opportunities for Investors

Petre Sorin Dimitriu is Chairman of the Board of the State Ownership Fund and Vice President of the Commission of Economical Reform of the Parliament of Romania. He also serves as Advisor to the President of Romania. He has held several positions in the Ministry of Industry's Department of Metallurgy, including Secretary of State and Head of Department. He holds a Ph.D. in Metallurgy.

Donald C. Roth is the Managing Partner of Emerging Markets Partnership. Previously, he served as Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank and earlier, during his 17 years with Merrill Lynch, he served as Chairman and Chief Executive, Merrill Lynch Europe Ltd., was responsible for all business operations in Europe and the Middle East. He is Advisor to the National Treasury Management Agency, Ireland, and a Director at the Center for International Private Enterprise. He has an M.B.A from the University of Chicago and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics.

J. A. Seroussi, is Chairman of Derano et Cie and Serjos Inc. in Canada, and has been involved in Romania's garment industry since 1965. In 1990 he established his first joint venture in Romania, J&R Enterprises, which carries out the export, import, and modernization activities of several garment factories. He is President of the Association of Foreign Investors in Romania.

Calin Popescu Tariceanu is Minister of Industry and Trade in Romania. He is a founding member and has served as Vice President of the National Liberal Party and as MP in the Romanian Parliament and member of the Economic Committee. He is President of the Association of Producers and Importers of Automobiles in Romania, and founder of Radio Contact, Bucharest's most-listened-to private radio station.

Antonius Johannes Jacobus Maria Van der Heijden is Country Manager of ING Barings Romania, ING Bank NV. He was formerly General Manager, ING Bank in Taipei, Senior Manager of Corporate Clients at PostBank ING, and Department General Manager at NCB Bank as well as General Manager of the Amsterdam Branch. He is also a founding member and member of the board of the Foreign Investors Council (Romania). He was educated at Tilburg University in Holland and the University of Paris, Sorbonne.

Asian Stock Markets: Are International Investors Shying Away?

Henry D. C. Lee is a Director of Hendale, a firm that specializes in investments in the Asian region with good returns for its investors. He has experience in both industrial and emerging markets from the capital markets and principal per-spectives, having worked for CS First Boston and Bass Brothers investments. His expertise includes equity arbitrage, derivatives, and traditional long/short investing.

Urban Lehner is Executive Director of Dow Jones Asia, Hong Kong, and oversees the editorial content of The Asian Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review. He has previously served as Editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal and Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe. Of his 28 years as a reporter and editor, he has spent 13 in Asia.

Steven Schoenfeld is Principal and an investment strategist of Barclays Global Investors' Emerging Markets Strategies Group, which currently manages more than US$3.5 billion in global emerging market equities. Previously, at the International Finance Corporation, he developed new investment vehicles based on the IFC Emerging Market Indexes; earlier he traded Japanese stock index futures at the Singapore International Monetary Exchange. He was a Fulbright Scholar in economics at the National University of Singapore.

Hideo Tanaka is Chief Global Strategist at Daiwa International Capital Management, Japan (DICAM), and was formerly Managing Director of DICAM in London. His long experience in international investment goes back to 1979 when he became Portfolio Manager at the European International Fund Management Co. S.A. in Amsterdam.

Prasarn Trairatvorakul is the Deputy Secretary-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand, and has been actively involved in many important activities related to the development and supervision of the Thai Capital Markets, including the preparation of important legislation. Before joining the Thai SEC, he worked at the Bank of Thailand in the areas of economic research, and supervision of banks and nonbank financial institutions.

Should There Be Greater Fiscal Transparency?

E. A. Evans is Secretary to the Treasury in the Australian Government, a position he assumed in 1993 after serving four years as Executive Director with the International Monetary Fund. He has been advising governments on fiscal policy for several decades, most recently through the introduction of fiscal responsibility legislation in Australia.

Ricardo Hausmann is the Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank. Previously he was the Minister of Coordination and Planning of Venezuela and the Chairman of the Joint Development Committee of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He has also served as a Director of the Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela.

Maria Ramos is the Director-General of the Department of Finance in South Africa. She also serves as a Director on the Board of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and is the Deputy Chairperson of the Policy Board for Financial Services and Regulation. She received her M.Sc. in economics from the University of London.

Vito Tanzi is Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has been President of the International Institute of Public Finance. He is the author of many books and articles on various economic issues.

Keynote: Global Integration

Jérôme Monod is Chairman of The Supervisory Board of Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux, in France, which is involved in the design and operations of infrastructure and municipal services on a global basis. He also is Chairman of Sino French Holding (China), and serves on several corporate boards, internally. Earlier in his career, Mr. Monod was Chief of Staff to France's Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and, prior to that, Director of France's Regional Planning and Development Agency. He was graduated from Wesleyan University, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, and was trained at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management L.L.C, a private investment management firm that serves as a principal investment advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds. He also is the founder of the Open Society Fund and The European University (in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw), and funds a network of foundations operating in 25 countries. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the author of many articles and books on political and economic change and finance.

James D. Wolfensohn