Speakers

Kenneth Andrulis is a Payments Leader and Innovator who has spent over 20 years working with banks to find new and innovative ways to grow in the payments space.  Ken started his career with Bank of America, followed by Chase, and then held several Senior Vice President roles with Huntington.  Ken’s work with banks lead him to Mastercard where he currently serves as Vice President leading a Regional Bank sales team.    

Ken is also a board member for RoamHR, an ambassador for Mastercard Start Path and has served as a mentor for an accelerator specializing in the Fintech space.

Ken resides in Columbus, Ohio and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a concentration in Marketing from Kent State University.

Bill Baumel is founding Managing Director of Ohio Innovation Fund, serving as a Board member at thirteen of Ohio Innovation Fund’s companies, and brings with him nearly two decades of VC experience in Silicon Valley. Areas of investment focus include SaaS, Cyber Security, Data Science, FinTech, Cell & Gene Therapy, and MedTech.

Bill has worked alongside OIF companies to help secure the majority of the Fortune 500 as customers, as well as build significant strategic partnerships with companies such as: Sanofi, Goldman Sachs, Genentech, Microsoft, Facebook, Citi, Dell, Cardinal Health, Snowflake, Databricks, SAP, Salesforce/Slack, Walgreens, UPS, Uber, Tesla, NFL and MLB, among others.

Bill has had sixteen successful exits via both multi-billion-dollar valuation Initial Public Offerings as well as acquisitions by companies such Medtronic, Dell, SAP, Intuit, and Stryker. Bill has been recognized as one of the Venture 100 Top VCs based on exits.

Bill received an MBA from the University of Michigan with High Distinction and a BS from The Ohio State University Summa Cum Laude.

Jason Black is currently a Senior Vice President and the Director of Analytic Insights at Huntington National Bank where he is responsible for conducting analytics across the enterprise, with an emphasis on implementing new analytic solutions. 

He was previously a Research Leader in Battelle’s Energy Systems business and a Senior Researcher at General Electric Global Research with over 20 patents pending or granted and over 20 academic publications.  He also has extensive experience in Management Consulting.

Jason retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army after over 20 years of service as a Military Intelligence Officer.  He has previous deployments to both Iraq and Haiti, and has numerous decorations, including a Bronze Star.

He received his PhD from MIT in Engineering Systems, and has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Notre Dame.  Jason volunteers with several Veteran’s organizations, the Boy Scouts, and as a Youth Sports Coach.

As the founder of several successful insurance technology start-ups, Ilya Bodner has changed the way people buy, sell, and engage with commercial insurance. Bodner began his career on the front lines of insurance as an agent, experiencing the challenges of the industry firsthand that he would later go on to solve as an entrepreneur. Recent recognitions include “Executive of the Year” by BizTech and Best in Biz, “People’s Choice Innovation Leader of the Year” by the Insurance Innovation Awards, EY “Entrepreneur of the Year” Finalist, and “Most Admired Executive” by the C-Suite Awards.

Nathan Craig is an assistant professor in the Department of Management Sciences. He earned a DBA in Technology and Operations Management from Harvard Business School as well as an MS in Operations Research and a BS in Integrated Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University.

His teaching experience includes courses in operations management and stochastic modeling as well as custom and executive-education programs at Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

His current research interests focus on retail supply chains, including capital structure and liquidation in the retail industry as well as mechanisms for improved manufacturer service levels and their impact on retailer demand. Craig’s research has been presented at various conferences and seminars, including annual meetings of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) as well as the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS).

His research has been published by Harvard Business School Press, the Journal of Operations Management, and Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. Nathan is the recipient of the Wyss Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research presented by Harvard Business School.

Derek DeHart currently serves as the Head of Product at battleface, a Columbus-based travel insuretech on a mission to help bring people and the world together. Derek has over 10 years of technology product development and delivery experience. Prior to battleface, he was a member of the Product teams at Root Insurance, connecting US consumers with the fairest car insurance available, and at CoverMyMeds, whose mission is to help patients get access to the medication they need to live healthy lives.

Derek is a passionate world-traveler, but he’s also deeply connected to the community in his home base of Columbus, Ohio. During the height of pandemic restrictions in 2020, he was a founding co-organizer of Can’t Stop Columbus, a group of hundreds of local volunteers delivering solutions to help combat emotional isolation, food insecurity, and unemployment. He also serves on the Board of Directors of SEA Change, a social enterprise accelerator program whose mission is to help entrepreneurs change the world.

Robert (“Rob”) Elmore is the Head of Strategy for KeyBank. In this role, Rob is responsible corporate development, strategic planning, and support of key strategic programs. Prior to this role, Rob was the CFO of Key’s Consumer Bank and Enterprise Digital organizations. Earlier in his career, he also served in various roles throughout Key’s Corporate Finance group, as well as a stint as the CFO of INSIGHT2PROFIT, a pricing consulting firm based in Beachwood, Ohio.

Rob is a graduate of Ohio University’s College of Business where he studied Finance and Management Information Systems; he is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder as recognized by the CFA Institute. Rob and his wife Lindsay, son Gabriel, and daughter Elliott live in Solon, Ohio.

As Enterprise Innovation Officer, Brent drives innovation efforts forward in support of the Grange enterprise strategy and guides decisions around innovative solutions to boldly position Grange for the future.  He has 15 years of P&C industry leadership experience. Brent has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Ohio University, MBA from the University of Dayton, and is a licensed CPA and Property & Casualty Insurance Agent in the state of Ohio.  He has also earned several insurance designations, including Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Risk Management (ARM), and Associate in Reinsurance (ARe).

Accomplished roboticist, entrepreneur and educator Ayanna Howard, PhD, became dean of the College of Engineering on March 1, 2021. Previously she was chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing, as well as founder and director of the Human-Automation Systems Lab (HumAnS).

Her career spans higher education, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the private sector. Dr. Howard is the founder and president of the board of directors of Zyrobotics, a Georgia Tech spin-off company that develops mobile therapy and educational products for children with special needs. Zyrobotics products are based on Dr. Howard’s research.

Among many accolades, Forbes named Dr. Howard to its America's Top 50 Women In Tech list. In May 2021, the Association for Computing Machinery named her the ACM Athena Lecturer in recognition of fundamental contributions to the development of accessible human-robotic systems and artificial intelligence, along with forging new paths to broaden participation in computing.

Dr. Howard also is a tenured professor in the college’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with a joint appointment in Computer Science and Engineering.

She is the first woman to lead the College of Engineering. Nationally, only 17% of engineering deans or directors across the country are female, according to the Society of Women Engineers. She also is the college’s second Black dean. George Mason University President Gregory Washington served as interim dean from 2008 to 2011. Throughout her career, Dr. Howard has been active in helping to diversify the engineering profession for women, underrepresented minorities, and individuals with disabilities.

Dr. Howard earned her bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Brown University, her master’s degree and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, and her MBA from Claremont Graduate University.

From 1993 to 2005, she worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she held multiple roles including senior robotics researcher and deputy manager in the Office of the Chief Scientist. Among other projects, Howard was involved in developing SmartNav — an autonomous, next-generation Mars rover — and SnoMotes, toy-sized robots that can explore icy terrain that is too dangerous for scientists.

She joined Georgia Tech in 2005 as an associate professor and the founder of the HumAnS lab. The lab focuses on humanized intelligence, which uses techniques such as sensing and learning to enhance the autonomous capabilities of robots or other computerized systems. The HumAnS lab has generated more than 250 publications and $8.5 million in principal investigators-led research funding.

Among other roles at Georgia Tech, Dr. Howard was program director of the nation’s first multidisciplinary robotics PhD program; associate chair for faculty development in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and associate director of research at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines.

In 2013, she founded Zyrobotics to help translate the lab’s research into commercial products for children with special needs. Zyrobotics spun off as a non-profit in 2020.

Kyle Kaufman, Assurance Senior Manager and CPA in the EY Columbus, OH office

Kyle has eleven years of experience with audits of public and private companies in various industries including pharmaceutical distribution, retail, consumer products, manufacturing, and local not for profits.  He believes that blockchain technology will accomplish for business ecosystems what enterprise resource planning (ERP) did for the single organization and that digital assets will be essential to the financial and operational success of organizations.  He believes that when he looks back on his career, he will remember the first half of his career as the pre-blockchain era and the second half as the blockchain era similar to prior generations’ experience with computers and the internet.  One of Kyle’s goals is to help educate clients on blockchain’s capabilities to assist them in understanding how blockchain can help them to achieve value internally and within their supply chains. 

Lori Kendall is a Senior Lecturer in the Management & Human Resources Department at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.

She has spent 30+ years as a serial entrepreneur and technology executive for venture-backed and publicly traded firms in B2B software, hardware, and networking. Lori has held VP and senior leadership positions responsible for new product development, portfolio management, and cloud services. She is a mixed methods researcher focused on innovation behavior within technology-based firms that leads to both sustained value creation and positive impact.

She currently serves as faculty at the Ohio State University and is an operating partner at Orchid Black. At Ohio State, Lori teaches courses in entrepreneurship, leadership, and business consulting. She completed her Ph.D. in Management, Building Sustainable Systems from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and she holds an MBA from Holy Names University in Oakland, CA.

Anil K. Makhija serves as dean and John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business of the Max M. Fisher College of Business. Makhija is recognized as an expert in the field of finance, particularly capital structure, corporate governance and valuation, and has more than 20 years of experience in academic leadership roles.

Prior to his appointment to dean in October 2014, Makhija served as senior associate dean at Fisher. He has served on the faculty of the business college since 1998 and has held the Dean's Distinguished Professorship and the David A. Rismiller Professorship in Finance. He chaired Fisher's Department of Finance and served as an associate dean of executive education programs, where he was responsible for the development of Fisher's top-ranked Executive MBA program.

Makhija has led consulting and executive development programs for dozens of leading companies in the U.S. and around the world. He has held visiting faculty appointments at respected institutions in Chile, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Hong Kong, India and Korea.

Makhija is a respected and widely published researcher. He is also the winner of numerous teaching awards, including the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Pace Setters Daniel Westerbeck Teaching Excellence Award — the highest teaching honors bestowed by, respectively, Ohio State and Fisher College of Business.

Makhija has been a featured expert in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times, Financial Times and Bloomberg Businessweek, among many others.

He has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MBA from Tulane University, and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Professor Minton was appointed Chair of the Department of Finance at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business in 2016. She also holds the Arthur E. Shepard Endowed Professorship in Insurance.

Prior to her appointment as chair, Professor Minton was selected to serve as the inaugural Academic Director of The Risk Institute since its inception in October 2013, as well as its Interim Executive Director. During her tenure, she oversaw growth in The Risk Institute’s profile and its corporate participation. She worked closely with the Institute’s advisory board in coordinating and leading The Risk Institute’s outreach, research and curriculum activities.

Professor Minton’s research spans a variety of areas within corporate finance, with particular emphasis on risk management, corporate governance and financial institutions. Her research has been published and highly cited in leading financial economics journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies, as well as the financial press. As a leader in her area of scholarship, Dr. Minton has been recognized for both her research output and her impact in the classroom teaching. She is a recipient of the Pace Setters Faculty Research Award and Pace Setters Undergraduate teaching Award andis and Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics Research Fellow.

During her time at Ohio State Professor Minton has developed a number of successful courses in the Undergraduate program. She currently teaches risk management to Fisher undergraduate students and works with future finance thought leaders in the Department of Finance’s PhD program.

Professor Oglevee is the Academic Director of the Fisher Executive MBA Program. He teaches in the Executive MBA and both Graduate and Undergraduate programs. His courses include venture capital, private equity, financial modeling, corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance, futures and options, investments and personal finance. He also teaches specialized classes within Fisher College’s Executive Education program including International courses in India.

Professor Oglevee has managed various Domestic student programs in Silicon Valley and New York as well as International based programs in London, Brussels, India, China, Hong Kong SAR and Africa. He is a faculty advisor for various case competition teams and teaches a variety of networking/interviewing seminars to help students prepare for Consulting and Wall Street case interviews.

Professor Oglevee is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Working Professional MBA classes at Fisher have chosen him for their Outstanding Faculty Award for best Elective Professor in both 2014 and 2013. He has also received the Undergraduate Program Teaching Award for Faculty Excellence multiple times as well as The Ohio State University Annual Career Services Award. In 2014, he was awarded the Pace Setter’s Teaching Award, the highest honor for teaching at Fisher, for sustained excellence in teaching.

Prior to teaching, Professor Oglevee was an entrepreneur within the wireless sector and spent three years in venture capital and nine years on Wall Street holding positions at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Oppenheimer. He consults regularly with early stage management teams on financing, valuation and business plan development to assist companies in becoming "Venture Ready."

Taner Pirim has wide-ranging experience in Analytics and Optimization under Finance and IT fields both as a scholar and practitioner. Beside his research and teaching experience in several areas under Business and Engineering Schools, he also had held several management and consultancy positions in Supercomputer, Telecom and CPG industries. Taner had taught in the fields of Supply Chain and Project Management, Business Analytics, as well as Engineering in several research universities in both USA and Europe.

After receiving his B.Sci. and M.Sci. in Engineering Science, Taner earned his Ph.D. in Production & Operations Management and Information Systems emphasizing in the areas of Operations Research and Optimization. He has publications and conference presentations in the fields of Information Systems and Engineering presented in Decision Sciences Institute as well as Engineering and Academy of Sciences conferences. He is currently a faculty member of Finance Department at Fisher College of Business teaching undergraduate and graduate level Financial Management and Analytics courses.

Kevin Pohmer, Financial Services Executive, Investor, Entrepreneur

Kevin’s career as an entrepreneur got started as the CEO and Chairman of Financial Guard, one of the pioneers of the Roboadvisor industry, which transformed how individuals receive and transact investment advice.  Kevin successfully led the team that built, brought to market, and scaled Financial Guard’s technology and completed the successful sale of the company to Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) in August, 2016.  Most recently, Kevin was the CEO of IXN, a leading Insurtech startup that accelerated the digital transformation of the life and annuity marketplace.  Kevin led the team that guided the growth of IXN to a successful exit in January, 2021 to the private equity company Thomas H. Lee Partners/Insurance Technologies.  Kevin has been active in the fintech community as an investor, advisor, and entrepreneur over the last decade.  He was a founding member of Fintech71 where he served as Entrepreneur in Residence & Board Member for Ohio’s inaugural global fintech accelerator.  Kevin also is a partner with HorizonTwoLabs which is a venture studio here in Columbus, Ohio and has been an investor in a number of early stage ventures, with a focus on fintech and insurtech. Kevin Pohmer began his career at J.P. Morgan Chase Bank where he spent over a decade from Analyst to Executive Director.     

Kevin has a Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Law from Binghamton University and a Masters of Business Administration from The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.

Rajiv Ramnath is a Professor of Practice in Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University. He extensively collaborates with industry and other departments on research, education and workforce programs and teaches several industry-relevant courses. He recently returned from a three year rotation as a Program Director in the Software cluster in the Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Computer Information Science and Engineering directorate at the National Science Foundation.

Prior to this, he worked for many years in industry, leading government-funded research and commercial product development. His industry R&D lab turned into a startup, so he ended up as an entrepreneur. In addition to his academic work, he also advised large and small businesses and startups on computing and information technology strategies.

His work covers four areas of research and practice: (i) Data Science for Intelligent Systems, (ii) Systems, Networking, and Signal Processing, (iii) Software Engineering and Software Applications and (iv) Enterprise Strategy, Engineering and Management. An additional area of work is Computer Science Education and Cyber learning.

Grant Schneider is Vice President of Machine Learning and Head of Upstart Columbus at Upstart. He returned to Columbus in 2019 to open and lead Upstart's HQ2 after spending his early career in Silicon Valley, where he helped build Upstart's AI models used to extend credit to borrowers left behind by traditional models. Since opening, Upstart Columbus has grown from 0 to 600+ people. Grant obtained his Bachelors, Masters, and Ph.D. degrees from THE Ohio State University, is the co-author of the textbooks "Intuitive Introductory Statistics" and "Primer for Data Analytics and Graduate Study in Statistics", and is a proud father of a four-year-old son and one-year-old daughter.

Amin Shams joined the Department of Finance at Fisher College of Business in 2019. He earned his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to his Ph.D., Amin received an MA degree in Global Policy Studies specializing in International Trade and Finance from the LBJ School of Public Affairs. His primary research interests are empirical asset pricing with a focus on FinTech and derivative markets.

His works on market manipulation of the Volatility Index (VIX) derivatives and Bitcoin prices have been published in top finance journals. He has other research projects on FinTech and the cryptocurrency market. His research has appeared in media outlets such as Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, U.S. News, Reuters, and Los Angeles Times. Professor Shams teaches FinTech to undergraduate and graduate students at Fisher.

Dan Snyder is an organized dreamer. The entrepreneurial bug hit him in his mid-20s when he started his first business. Although the company wasn’t scalable, it allowed him to buy his first home, showing him homeownership is the greatest wealth creator. In his early 30s, he and his co-founders started Lower to disrupt the mortgage industry and help others build wealth through homeownership.

Now the CEO, Dan leads all day-to-day strategy and operations. Lower’s multi-channel fintech platform meets consumers where they want to do business. Its tech-forward consumer brand, Lower.com, offers a streamlined, digital approach, while its retail presence, Homeside Financial focuses on an in-person, local experience with offices around the country.

Additionally, the company houses 18 local lending teams under its national private label program and will soon expand to offer Mortgage as a Service (MaaS) to its growing book of business.

Under Dan’s leadership, the company has funded more than $16.5B in loans since its founding in 2014 and raised the largest Series A investment in Ohio history in 2021. Additionally, the Lower team has grown from five employees in Columbus, Ohio to more than 1,700 across the nation, and has been named a best place to work, both locally and nationwide.

Dan’s extensive background in finance also includes executive roles at Wells Fargo and American Bank. He is the co-founder of QuickInsured, one of the fastest growing independent insurance agencies in the country. He was named the #4 SMB CEO by Glassdoor in 2021 and named to Columbus CEO’s Future 50 Class of 2021 and Columbus Business First’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2015.

Dan is passionate about supporting the growth of his local community and gives back through the Young President’s Organization, the New Albany Foundation, Junior Achievement and Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Healthy Homes. Dan and his wife have two children and call New Albany home.

René M. Stulz is the Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics and the Director of the Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics at The Ohio State University. He has also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded a Marvin Bower Fellowship from the Harvard Business School, a Doctorat Honoris Causa from the University of Neuchâtel, and the Risk Manager of the Year Award of the Global Association of Risk Professionals. In 2004, the magazine Treasury and Risk Management named him one of the 100 most influential people in finance. Reuters includes him in its list of the world’s most influential scientific minds. He is a past president of the American Finance Association and of the Western Finance Association, and a fellow of the American Finance Association, the European Corporate Governance Institute, the Financial Management Association, and the Wharton Financial Institutions Center.

René M. Stulz was the editor of the Journal of Finance, the leading academic publication in the field of finance, for twelve years, and coeditor of the Journal of Financial Economics for five years. He is on the editorial board of more than ten academic and practitioner journals. Further, he is a member of the Asset Pricing and Corporate Finance Programs and the director of the Risk of Financial Institutions Group of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

He has published more than one hundred papers in finance and economics journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Harvard Business Review. He is the author of a textbook titled Risk Management and Derivatives, a co-author of the Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System, and has edited several books, including two volumes of the Handbook of the Economics of Finance.

René M. Stulz has taught in executive development programs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He has consulted for major financial institutions as well as for non-financial firms, law firms, the New York Stock Exchange, the IMF, and the World Bank, and testified in federal and state courts as well as in arbitrations. He has served on bank boards, on the board of an asset management company, and as a member and as vice-chair of the Board of Trustees of the Global of Risk Professionals.

Mark Vair is a 33 year veteran of the insurance industry. His experiences include roles of increasing responsibility in human resources, technology infrastructure, IT operations and application development. In his current role, Mark serves as Director, Software Engineering Product Management for the Finance Technology solution area at Nationwide Insurance, a Fortune 100 company. He manages several Finance technology assets and orchestrates large scale cloud native application development, leveraging primarily Amazon Web Services. Mark also has experiences managing package application suites, including Oracle and SAP.  Originally from Princeton, New Jersey, Mark has two daughters in college and lives in Westerville with his wife Debbie, along with two miniature long hair Dachshunds, Miley and Lila.

Dr. Grace Wang joined The Ohio State University in December 2020 as executive vice president for Research, Innovation and Knowledge where she plays a lead role in expanding the university’s cutting-edge research, creative expression and scholarship, stimulating entrepreneurship, and building strategic partnerships.

Prior to Ohio State, Dr. Wang held dual roles as senior vice chancellor for Research and Economic Development at the State University of New York (SUNY) System and interim president of SUNY Polytechnic Institute. At SUNY, Dr. Wang led its research enterprise with about $1.7 billion annual expenditure. She advanced a research and economic development growth strategy, expanding its research capacity in key strategic areas.

She was instrumental in establishing a few large-scale strategic partnerships at SUNY, advancing its research and development capacity while fueling regional economic growth.

Before joining SUNY, Dr. Wang served as acting assistant director for engineering at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In this role, she led the Engineering Directorate at NSF, managing a funding portfolio of over $900 million dedicated to investments in frontier engineering research, supporting engineering education, and fostering innovation and technology commercialization. She previously served as NSF's deputy assistant director for engineering, overseeing the operation of the Directorate for Engineering and helping to identify and implement research, innovation, and education priorities.

Dr. Wang began her career at IBM/Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, focusing on research and development of magnetic thin film and carbon overcoat for data storage. She holds seven U.S. patents.

Dr. Wang also serves as a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State. Dr. Wang received a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University.