Michael Imerman
Assistant Professor of Teaching in Finance
UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business

Professor Michael Imerman is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Finance Area at the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine and the Faculty Director for the Master of Finance Program. He has held academic roles at Claremont Graduate University, Lehigh University, and Rutgers Business School, and completed an NSF-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, establishing expertise in banking, risk management, financial data science, and FinTech innovation. His research has appeared in leading journals, and he brings practical industry insight from his early career as a Wall Street analyst. Currently finalizing his book The Economics of FinTech for MIT Press, Dr. Imerman also advises a range of financial institutions and startups, drawing on a rich blend of academic and real-world experience.

Mary Beth Eckert
Chief Information and Digital Officer
Pacific Life

Mary Beth Eckert is an award-winning technologist and innovator who currently serves as the Chief Information and Digital Officer at Pacific Life, where she leads a transformative Enterprise Technology Strategy and sits on the Management Committee. With over 30 years of insurance technology experience, she has held pivotal roles at USAA, Travelers Group, Zurich North America, and PwC, driving innovation and transformation throughout her career. Recognized for her strategic, results-oriented leadership, she has received accolades such as the 2019 DigIn Women in Insurance Leadership award and the 2022 Central Texas CIO of the Year ORBIE award, and she frequently shares her expertise at prominent industry conferences.

Hussein Kalaoui
Chief Marketing Officer
Varo Bank

Hussein Kalaoui is the Chief Marketing Officer at Varo Bank, the first all-digital, nationally-chartered U.S. consumer techbank. Varo’s mission is to create financial inclusion and opportunity for all. At Varo, Hussein leads the company’s growth strategy through acquisition and engagement, overseeing paid marketing, customer lifecycle management and marketing analytics. He brings extensive cross-industry experience in building marketing engines that drive measurable, bottom-line impact, both at startups and at multibillion dollar companies. Prior to Varo, Hussein was the Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer at Barsala, a consumer hospitality marketplace. He was also an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he advised Fortune 500 clients on growth for tech-enabled consumer businesses. He has a background in engineering and started his career in product design. Hussein’s interest is in driving growth in companies that help people thrive, powered by data-driven marketing and tech.

Timothy Li
Co-founder and CTO
MaxDecisions

Timothy Li has over 20 years of banking experience. He’s passionate about banking technology, risk management solutions and helping clients to solve problems. He worked at JPMorgan Chase, LoanDepot, RealtyMogul, Elevate Credit and Intel Corporation. He serves on multiple advisory boards and holds multiple patents in the area of banking and financial technology. Tim is also a lecturer at USC Viterbi School of Engineering where he teaches FinTech and Entrepreneurship. Tim is an avid runner and spends most of his time with his wife and four kids.

Ewan Lowe
Executive Vice President
Pimco

Jinfei Sheng
Assistant Professor of Finance
UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business

Professor Jinfei Sheng joined the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine as an Assistant Professor of Finance in July 2018. Before that, he received his PhD in finance from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia in Canada. At UCI, he creates a new course on FinTech for undergraduate and graduate students and serves as the founding faculty advisor for the Anteater Crypto Association and Irvine FinTech Association. He also teaches Managerial Finance for MBA students at UCI and previously taught Corporate Finance at UBC, earning excellent teaching awards at both institutions.

Moderator
Ian O. Williamson
Dean
UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business

Ian O. Williamson was appointed dean of The UCI Paul Merage School of Business on January 1, 2021. Prior to joining the Merage School, he served as pro vice-chancellor and dean of commerce at the Wellington School of Business and Government at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Williamson received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in business from Miami University. He has served as a faculty member at several institutions, including Melbourne Business School, Rutgers Business School, the Zurich Institute of Business Education, the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, and Institut Teknologi Bandung.